Brother Dearest
by MilesTailsPrower-007
Summary: MegaMan Battle Network universe. What would it be like if Saito were still alive? He and Lan don't always get along, that's for certain. But perhaps they can learn to... [No OCs or pairings! Reviews appreciated.]
1. Disarray

_**Author's Note:** Another .EXE story. This story takes place under the circumstance that Lan's brother had not perished. Thus, MegaMan in his wonderfully blue program form isn't in this, really. Well, he sort of is, since he's Saito and all. Anyhow, I'm using the English names, all except for Saito, because every time I say "Hub" I start laughing. It's hard to write when that happens, heh. Also, there are intentional mistakes in Lan and Dex' notes. This is a bit short, but there'll be more soon. Thank you for looking. Reviews are very muchly appreciated. Take care!_

_**EDIT: **I am aware of the inconsistancy. I thank you all for pointing it out and all anyway, but please don't just review to tell me anymore. I've already been told several times. I really appreciate your help, and I thank those who took the time to review, or even just read, heh. Take care now!_

* * *

Somewhere in a relatively quiet neighborhood in DenTech City stood a blue and white house. This was the home of Dr. Hikari and his family. Dr. Hikari spent a great deal of time away from home due to work, however, which left his wife Haruka at home with their two eleven year old boys, Lan and Saito. They were twins, and identical ones, at that. Both had the same brown hair and brown eyes as their parents did. They were both the same height, and had all the same features... except for one. The single distinguishing trait between the two boys' appearances was that Saito's hair right at the back of his neck stuck up somewhat. But that was all. As well as this, the two didn't dress the same way, much to the relief of everyone else who had trouble differentiating between the two. In any case, Haruka was left at home by herself to take care of her two boys, and thus, they were virtually the center of her life.

Aside from the small but notable difference in the boys' appearances, they had other differences: personality ones. Lan was more energetic. He was enthusiastic about playing outside, but less than keen about going to school. He had a small group of friends he hung around with most of the time, too. He liked to play soccer. Saito, on the other hand, was almost the inverse. He enjoyed school. He was also quieter, and thus didn't mind being by himself as much. He liked to be organised. Although he did get along with all of those in his brother's group of friends, his best friend was Tory. Unlike his brother, he wasn't much of a sports enthusiast, but many people had come to believe that this was because of one of the biggest differences between the boys. One that wasn't external or emotional.

Saito had a bad heart.

He had been born with it. However, the doctors had deemed it stable enough to let it wait until he was older. There would be less risks associated with any kind of surgery in that case. Because of this, Haruka took extra care to ensure that Saito was careful with himself. She was more than relieved when he'd grown up to be so quiet. At least this way, she wouldn't have to worry constantly whenever he left the house. Nothing could happen to her little boy as long as he was within sight, besides. Saito was aware of his mother's concerns, and so he tried to ensure he did nothing to displease her. After all, with their father gone so often, what did she really have besides him and Lan..?

Morning erupted in the Hikari household. This day, of all days, had an extremely unpleasant beginning. Lan was going to bring something to school to show Dex, but had completely misplaced the thing. As a result, he was now frantically tearing apart their bedroom looking for it. At least he was actually _almost _up on time. Shoving past his brother, Lan began digging through a drawer in the computer desk.

"Lan... what on earth are you looking for?" Saito quirked a brow as he stood watching Lan's franticness change to frustration.

"Arrrggggh!" The other boy ignored him, proceeding to look in every place he was sure it could be in, as well as some places it couldn't. "I know I put the stupid thing on the desk last night!"

"Your Gameboy?" guessed Saito, fully dressed and ready to leave for school... unlike his brother.

"Yes, my Gameboy," grumbled Lan in response as he opened the closet and looked in.

"It's on the kitchen table. You left it there so you wouldn't forget it."

Lan's eyes got wide. "What? ...That was a stupid place to leave it!" He immediatly raced out of the room, returning with a small cobalt device. This was actually one of the stupider things they owned, because they both had one. What made it stupid was that they both had gotten the same color, which resulted in confusion. Lan set the small console on the desk and tried to get dressed in a hurry. He straightened his messy brown hair and threw on his clothes. He'd have put on his bandana, too, if he hasn't lost it in the process of tearing their room apart. Saito sighed and headed out of the room.

"Come on, Lan," he said. "You said you didn't want to be late again today."

"Yeah," Lan replied, pocketing the device as he followed his brother out into the hall. He picked up his backpack off a chair in the kitchen and swung it over his shoulder. "You should have gotten me up earlier."

"I tried to. I didn't know you were going to tear the whole room apart looking for something, though."

"I didn't tear _all_ of it apart," Lan insisted in his own defense as they walked to the door. Their mother stopped them before they had a chance to leave.

"Saito, thank you for trying to get Lan to school on time. You boys be good, alright? I'll see you when you get home from school. I love you both! Have a good day!" Mrs. Hikari smiled pleasantly. Her smiles were nice; they were full of kindness and love. Saito smiled slightly and nodded.

"Bye," the twins said almost in synch, even though one lacked enthusiasm in his tone. School, in his mind, was something he could do without.

* * *

Lan and Saito arrived at school at exactly 8:37am... just over five minutes late. Despite being late along with his brother, Ms. Mari took almost no notice to Saito as he quietly joined the class. Lan, on the other hand, attracted something of a stare. The young teacher looked him up and down, almost expectantly. Even without his bandana, Ms. Mari could obviously still tell the twins apart. "Lan!" she said, her tone edged with what appeared to be surprise. "You're almost on time this morning!" The boy's face reddened and he silently slunk to the back of his class, sitting in the desk directly diagonal from Dex's. At least he didn't get yelled at, anyway.

"Pssst!" Dex reached over inconspicuously, and jabbed Lan with a folded piece of paper. He took it curiously, not paying attention as Ms. Mari began explaining what their schedule was for the day. Unfolding the paper, he was greeted by the familiarity of Dex's somewhat messy writing. He pressed so hard on the pencil that sometimes he left dark smudges. Despite this, it was legible.

_did you bring the GBA like I told you too? did you talk to you're dad about getting a navi?_

Lan looked around quickly. Good. Yai wasn't close enough to see and rat on him. Perfect. He carefully took a pencil out of his desk and scrawled a reply beneath Dex's writing in what space remained.

_yea I broght it. I havn't talked to my dad yet so maybe he'll let me have a navi if I ask him next time_

Refolding the paper, he gave it a light toss. It landed on the other boy's desk, sliding a short distance over the smooth surface. Dex smushed a large hand over it and dragged it onto his lap to read it. Having done so, he gave his friend a nod. However, Ms. Mari wasn't born yesterday and was starting to catch on. She halted in mid sentence and looked in their direction. Both boys froze. The teacher proceeded. Whew. Thankfully, she didn't nail them for anything. They were done anyway. Lan sunk back in his chair. He had been there less than five minutes and was already bored. From his place about four desks up, Saito took a glance back over his shoulder at his brother. Lan needed to learn to like school. Ms. Mari went to her desk and picked up a stack of papers.

"These are your spelling tests from yesterday," she stated. "Some of you did very well! Maylu even got a perfect score! I'm very pleased to see that." She smiled and began handing tests back to the students who had written them. Lan assumed that Yai would probably get perfect on hers once she did it. The young heiress had been away from school the previous day because she had gone on a day trip with her father. Ms. Mari handed Dex his test. The large boy flinched like he'd been jabbed with the hot end of a fireplace poker. He'd gotten an amazing 10 out of 40. Maylu was sitting in front of him. She turned in her chair. "What did you get, Dex?" she asked sweetly.

Dex's face turned a peculiar shade of magenta. "Uh.. uhm... t-ten."

The red haired girl smiled. "That's pretty good! I know you have trouble with spelling. If you want, I can help you practise next time."

"R-really?" The heavyset boy cracked an embarrassed smile. "I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Maylu..."

Lan snickered. Just then, Ms. Mari's shadow loomed over the front of his desk. He looked up at the teacher nervously, and she handed the white piece of paper down to him. He was afraid to look at it. Slowly, he turned it around so that the numbered side faced him. The side with his spelling on it, and his score, too. 17 out of 40. He grimaced. At least this was better than the last one he'd done. Thankfully, he recieved no lecture. The auburn-haired teacher just proceeded to hand out the last of the marked tests. Afterward, she resumed her place at the front of the classroom.

"Today," she announced, "we will begin working with basic fractions."

Oh no. Not fractions...

She picked up a piece of chalk and started writing on the blackboard, explaining as she went. After a good ten minutes of talking, she took in afew questions from students, and then wrote out their assignment on the board. "I'd like you all to do page 26 in your text books. _Only_ do the even questions up to number 50. We will be going over this tommorrow. If you have any more questions once you've gotten started, you can come and ask me. Work quietly, please!" The students took out their notebooks and math textbooks and began working. Lan scanned over the work to be done. The first few were really easy-- proper fractions. The rest, on the other hand, involved multiplying mixed fractions. How the heck was he supposed to do that? He did what he could, anyway. Ms. Mari, who was now seated at her desk looking over her lesson plan, decided to be kind. "You may work in partners as long as you're quiet," she decided. Immediatly, the level of chatter was kicked up a notch or two.

"Dex, do you get this?" Lan asked. "I don't get the mixed fractions stuff."

"I don't get _any_ of it," Dex mumbled. Unfortunately, Yai and Maylu had already decided to work together. Well, there went their main source of brains. Dex rested his face in his hand. "Whaddaya got so far?" They traded answers. That, however, still left them with other answers to be found. Now what were they supposed to do? Pay attention next time? Not likely. Lan drummed his fingers on his desk. Due to the moving of desks as his peers went to sit with their friends, he was in perfect view of Saito. He and Tory were already sitting next to each other in the rows, so they apparently felt no need to move and were working separately anyway. Bingo!

"Hah! I just got us the rest of the answers," Lan declared quietly to Dex as he pushed himself back from his desk and got up. He wandered over to his brother. "Hey Saito."

The other brown-haired boy looked up at him for only a second, immediatly thereafter resuming his work. "Hello, Lan."

"You understand all this stuff, right?" He gave a hopeful grin.

Saito froze for a moment, his sharpened pencil poised over the next math equasion he was to answer. He sighed, knowing what question was to follow his reply. "Yes..."

"Can you... y'know, 'help' me?"

"If what you mean by 'help' is do it for you, then no." He shifted slightly in his chair and kept working. He was onto the last few questions now. "This isn't due until tommorrow. I can help you when we get home, if you like."

Lan was dissapointed. Saito was being less submissive than he'd expected he would be. This was hardly going to help him avoid getting homework. If anything, it had ensured he would have homework tonight, even if it was only a little. "Uh, so I guess that means you're not going to do anything now."

Saito silently corrected an error in his work. "Lan, you won't learn anything if I do it for you..." He looked up at him. "I'm almost finished. I can come and show you and Dex how to do it properly. It will only take me a minute."

"Eh, it's okay." He would rather not have his brother teach him how to do math. How embarrassing. They were the same age. He didn't want to look like the inferior twin. "I'll, uhm... figure it out."

"If you're sure. Good luck. You can always ask Ms. Mari if you don't want to ask me." Saito gave something of an encouraging smile, and Lan turned around and headed back to Dex.

"Well?" Dex urged.

"He wouldn't tell me anything!" Lan told him. "He's not big on cheating." He plunked himself down into his chair. Rather than at least trying to figure it out, the two plotted about how they could get their work done without doing any actual work. Mooching off Maylu and Yai was out, and so was copying Saito. Rats. They wasted the next ten minutes pondering this until Ms. Mari had resumed her place in front of the class once again.

"Please put away your work," she said. "The rest is homework. We're going to start on a novel study today!"

Ah, reading comprehension. Another of Lan's "strong" points. Why was Ms. Mari making today her new activity day? Hopefully it couldn't get much more homework laden than this, anyway. The teacher held up a novel.

"We'll be doing a novel study on this book. It's called 'Island of the Blue Dolphins'. I'll give you some question work to do, and you'll also be expected to make a two-page summary of the plot. Don't worry, though. You'll have time in class over the next few weeks to get through it." She went further into an explaination, talking about various criteria; full sentence answers and stuff like that. Just as she finished her in-depth description, the recess bell rang. Hah! Freedom. Everyone starting getting up. If you can't beat them, join them, and so Ms. Mari went to get herself a cup of coffee. Lan pulled the Gameboy Advance out of his pocket.

"Awesome! You got an SP, too?" Dex took it from Lan's hands and studied. "Whatcha playin'?"

"PokeMon FireRed," Lan answered.

Meanwhile, Saito had taken his GBA to school with him, too. He gestured to Tory. "I caught that Kangaskhan," he said. "I'll show you! Tommorrow, if you bring your Gameboy, we could trade, and it'll help you to complete your Pokedex. I finished mine!"

"Did you?" Tory queried. "That's great! Can I see?"

"Sure!" He smiled and turned it on. Ah, his save file. He frowned slightly as the game scrolled through the last few things he'd done. That... didn't sound right. He checked his menu. "LAN"? They must have gotten their Gameboys mixed up again. "Whoops. Looks like I have my brother's game," he said. "Hold on." Saito got up and headed over to Lan and Dex, who were entertaining themselves by killing a Pokemon of the same type with much ease due to the strength gap. Saito stood behind his brother for several seconds before he noticed him.

Lan paused. "What's up?"

"Uhm, Lan, you've got my Gameboy."

"No I don't."

Saito bit his lip. "Yeah. I finished my Pokedex."

"Nuh-uh. This is my cartridge."

"It isn't."

"Is, too."

"No. I've got yours."

"No you don't."

Why did Lan have to be this way? Saito crossed him arms lightly over his chest. "If it's yours, then show me your user file."

"Don't need to, since it's mine."

Saito stuck the other screen right in front of his face. "'My' menu says 'LAN' on it, which means it's yours. Besides, your starter was a charmander. Mine was squirtle."

Lan sighed aggitatedly and switched handhelds with him. "There. Better?"

"Thank you."

"Meh." He resumed chattering animatedly to his friend. With his proper game in hand, Saito moved back to the front of the class and handed it off to Tory, who curiously began flicking through the Pokedex. Saito sighed. "Lan's kind of a pain sometimes. He takes my stuff, and then when I ask for it back he insists it's his until I shove evidence in his face. If I accidentally take something of his, he just yanks it from me. We try to avoid it by 'color coding' everything, but not everything we buy comes in distinctive enough colors. And relatives never remember to do it. That's why our Gameboys are the same color."

Tory looked up for a moment. "Maybe try to put it to him nicely? If you don't seem mad, maybe he won't be as... annoying."

"I try," Saito sighed honestly. "I try to be patient with him, but he's around almost all the time. We live in the same house. Maybe I'm just being a little on edge. I mean, we do get along sometimes."

"That's true. I guess you're bound to fight if you're around each other almost all the time."

"Yeah, you're right. I won't pay any mind to it. I love my brother, even when he's a doofus."


	2. Oops

_**Author's Note: **I'm aware of the name inconsistancy. I'm sorry if it sounds weird. But, I guess if their parents' names can be "Yuichiro" and "Haruka" then "Saito" is alright, too. "Hub" still makes me laugh. I'm a goofball. XD_

* * *

At the end of the day, the two boys headed for home. Lan had decided to take up the topic of netnavis, and was now going on and on about how cool it would be to netbattle, and about how they should ask their father for customized navis the next time he was home. Saito commented that possibly he might just give them navis without them asking if he thought they were ready for them. "How did you do with that spelling thing?" he asked, changing the direction of the conversation.

"Almost half," Lan said, distractedly shifting the weight of his backpack onto the other shoulder. "What about you?"

"Hmm... thirty-seven," Saito answered indifferently. "I guess you'll have some math to do when we get home, too."

His brother stopped to pluck a caterpillar off a nearby bush. He stood there a moment, letting the fuzzy little bug crawl along his finger. Saito stopped several feet ahead of him, waiting for him to resume walking. "Yeah, I guess," Lan said. "But I was gonna go to the net arcade with Dex at 4pm, so I guess I'll have to do it later." He let the caterpillar find its way off his hand and back onto a leaf of the bush before picking up the pace again. "Gonna see if we can beat the high score on that Dance Dance Revolution machine, hehe."

Saito tilted his head slightly, frowning thoughtfully as they continued to walk. "But you're going to do it, right?"

Lan shrugged. "I hope so! We got pretty good over the weekend. Hehe, I bet we lost about ten bucks in quarters!"

"I meant the homework."

"Oh that. Yeah, later. It won't wander away while I'm gone. Though I kinda wish it would." He grinned cheekily at his bad joke, and nudged his twin in the arm. "You wanna come with us? The more the better, as long as you can do DDR. That stupid Tom guy thinks he's the master, or something. He'll be so surprised when we beat his record!" He started whistling one of his favorite tunes from the dance-along game.

"Nah, it's alright. You can go with Dex. I don't mind."

"'Kay. I'll tell you how many tries it took us to beat that score, too."

* * *

It was about a fifteen minute walk from school back to their house. They didn't always go together. Sometimes Lan ended up going to school on his own just because otherwise his brother would be horrendously late along with him. Also, their afterschool plan sometimes varied, and so they didn't always end up walking back together, either. In this case, they had gone both ways together and weren't parting until Dex swung by to get Lan so they could go to the net arcade. As school ended at 2:30pm, they arrived home at about quarter to three. Mrs. Hikari was on the phone with a neighbor when they got there. She gave them a silent wave and a smile as they entered so that she wouldn't disturb her conversation. Both boys put their stuff away and seperated themselves in different areas of the house. Lan began watching some ridiculous TV show just to kill time, and Saito resumed his place in a book he was reading. They went on doing seperate things until there was a rather sturdy knock at the door. Lan bounded for it. "I'LL GET IT!" he announced loudly enough that the whole house could hear it. Mrs. Hikari apologized for the loud interuption, as she was still on the phone. The brown-haired boy opened the door to be greeted by the large round form of Dex.

Lan looked surprised. "I thought you were coming at four!"

"Yeah, I was," Dex said. "But... heck! This way we c'n get a good head start on that game, right?"

"Good plan!" He stepped back into his orange sneakers. "Mom, I'm leaving early!" he called to her. She nodded busily. Lan gave Dex a grin. "This is gonna be awesome! How much money are you bringing?"

"Ten bucks, same as last time."

"Okay. I'll go get mine. Come with me!"

Dex nodded and followed him back to his bedroom. Saito was still reading, intently absorbed in his fictional book. Seated on the bed, he didn't even look up when his brother and his brother's friend entered. Lan yanked some paper money out of it's safe place underneath a book in his drawer. What made this spot brilliant was the fact that Lan virtually never read anything unless he had to, or it was text on a website. Thus, no one would ever think of looking there. He held the money up triumphantly. "Let's go!" He shot his brother a glance. "Last chance," he offered. "We're going right now."

"It's alright," Saito answered, almost in the same manner as before. "You guys can go without me." He gave him something of a good-natured smile, as if to assure that he wasn't feeling left out.

"Suit yourself," shrugged Lan as he and Dex headed out. They disappeared out of the room, and in another few moments, Saito heard the door slam as they left. He sighed and continued reading. The house was quiet now that it was free of his obnoxious brother. The silence was sort of welcome, though. At least if Lan was off with Dex, he wouldn't be bothering anyone. He was nice to his friends, anyway. If they put up with what Saito did, they'd probably think twice about doing anything with him. But, of course, Lan wasn't as annoying when he was with his friends. Evidently, he didn't feel the need to be the constant center of attention (and source of noise) around anyone except Saito. How terribly convenient. He shifted slightly and turned the page. This was actually very nice. He and his book were having a good time without any interuptions. At about 4:10pm, Mrs. Hikari entered the room. Apparently she was off the phone now.

Saito looked up. "Hello."

"Saito, the phone's for you," she told him. "It's Tory, Yai and Maylu." Funny... he hadn't even heard it ring. Oh well.

"Tell them I'll be there in a second," he responded, sticking the bookmark back into his novel and setting it down. In a moment, he headed out to the phone, which was near the kitchen. Three faces waited on-screen. Tory and Maylu were both smiling, while Yai, on the other hand, was looking somewhat impatient. Ah, a four-way call. Yai must have hooked this one up.

"Hey guys," he said.

"Hey!" Tory repeated. "I guess Lan already left with Dex, huh?"

"Yeah. They've been gone for awhile now. So what's up?"

"Nothing much," Yai answered, her voice edged with boredom. "We thought you might want to do something with us."

"That's right." Maylu held up some money. "We were thinking that the four of us should all head down to the net arcade and meet them there. Then we'd all be together! It'll be fun!"

It seemed, more or less, like he'd be going with his friends and _not_ Lan, and so Saito found this idea to be somewhat promising. "Alright," he said. "I'll come. Should we all just meet down there?"

"Sounds fine to me," decided Yai. "Just don't be slow this time. The last time, I was waiting for amost ten minutes."

"You live closer than we do," Tory told her. "So... I guess I'll see you guys there?"

"Okay. Sounds good." Saito smiled.

They exchanged farewells, and Saito immediatly headed back to his room to get some money. Retrieving fifteen dollars cash (as you always need to bring extra - you never know!), he pocketed it and went to inform his mother of the change in plans. She was now humming and busily assembling some sort of baked item, which was probably a cake, judging by the pans alone. She looked up as he came in, her bright eyes locking on him in the kitchen doorway. "Hello, sweetheart."

"Hello," he said, the same as always. "I'm going to the net arcade with Tory, Yai and Maylu. I'll probably be back around the same time as Lan, if not earlier. Does six o'clock sound alright?"

"Yes, that sounds fine." Haruka whisked at the batter in the bowl she was working with. "You can give yourself a little more time, even, if you like. Try to be home for 6:30pm, if you can. And try to get Lan to come back with you, please. You know how he is. I don't want him getting into trouble."

"Alright." And so Saito Hikari headed off to join his friends.

* * *

In a short while, the four had assembled themselves at the net arcade. They entered as a group, but thereafter decided they'd all just split up and do as they wanted for awhile and regroup before going home. The net arcade was a busy place. Everyone enjoyed going there. It had a nice atmosphere to it. The lighting was fairly soft, and there were arcade games of every sort. Everything from the classics to Dance Dance Revolution and net battling. Here, there was a net battle arena where people could pit their navis against each other just for fun. It was really popular, and usually large crowds gathered around to watch the spectacle. Some netbattlers had become well-known just from their good reputations in the arcade. The arcade itself was a great place. It was high-energy and everyone was always having fun. Time absolutely flew when you were there.

The group of four wandered apart, each searching for something interesting to do. In no time, they had almost completely lost track of each other in the busy scene. Meanwhile, Dex and Lan had absorbed themselves entirely in the wonder of Dance Dance Revolution. They had not yet succeeded in surpassing the current record, however. Dex sighed exhaustively and leaned against the screen. "Whew. This is tougher than I thought..."

Lan dug into his pocket and managed to pull out another quarter for the machine. "Yeah, I know. At least we're close, anyway." He inserted the coin and the machine responded accordingly. "Which song are we doing now?"

"Beats me. Whatever's hard. We don't wanna look like wimps." Dex took out a quarter and did the same. "So let's try it again. Failure is NOT AN OPTION!" So the two started up the next song. Not too far away, Yai and Saito were 'killing' each other on an arcade version of Soul Caliber 2, completely oblivious of the fact that Dex and Lan were probably only about twenty feet away. Yai was frustratedly slamming at her joystick, trying to evade an attack. At last, she got the better of Saito's character and triumphantly pulverised him in-game.

"Hah! I told you! Ayano-Tech's heiress _can't_ lose." She smiled smartly and tossed a blonde braid over her shoulder.

"Heh, alright. I believe you. You won eight times out of ten, which is pretty good."

"Of course it is! Did you expect any less?"

Saito laughed. "Of course not." He looked around, trying to recognise his friends amongst the many other people. "Where did you last see Tory and Maylu?"

"Hmmm... Well, I know Tory went to watch the netbattle. He's probably still there. I'm going to look for Maylu."

"Okay. I'll see you, Yai. Good luck!" The two went their seperate ways, each looking for their friend. Yai had been right, as usual. Tory was entertaining himself by watching a net battle. Saito weaved through the mini crowd to get to him. From there, he could see the arena much more clearly. A somewhat brawny-looking navi was going the rounds with a small and athletic looking female one. The two darted around very quickly, getting attacks in whenever they found openings. It was admittedly rather interesting, and he found himself so absorbed in watching it that he almost forgot why he'd come over there in the first place. His mind clicked after a moment, and he touched Tory on the shoulder.

"Oh! Hey, Saito!" Tory smiled before directing his eyes back to the arena. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"Yeah, very," Saito agreed. "I don't think I've ever really watched a net battle before. At least... not advertently." He watched as the female navi bested the large greenish one with what looked like a canon of some sort. The loser was logged out, leaving the winner standing triumphant. Her net-op offered to play against anyone who wanted to try.

Tory pulled his PET out. "I'll give it a go," he offered. His navi was IceMan. While Saito was familiar with him, he hadn't ever really seen him fight. He had hardly seen anything pertaining to navis, in fact, aside from their routine activities of deleting minor viruses and managing e-mail. Apparently, Dex tried to have GutsMan wake him up in the morning, too, but that didn't work too well, since both net-op and net navi were rather unreliable that way. Yai's Glide was more like a butler or servant than a warrior, and Maylu's Roll seemed to innocent in nature to actually attack anything. Oh well. Saito watched as Tori approached the arena and jacked his navi into it. He caught himself wondering what it would be like to be inside there, fighting. Strange thought. IceMan appeared across from his female opponent. Just as Tory began to download some battlechips, Saito caught sight of the clock. 5:57pm... He still had time to check out afew things, track down his friends and say good-bye to them, and then find his brother. Punctuality was important.

"Tory!"

His friend looked up for only a split second before his full focus returned to his netbattle. "Yeah?"

"I've gotta go. See you at school, and good luck!"

"Thanks."

Saito turned and squeezed back through the crowd. Now to find the others! In less than ten minutes, he tracked down Yai, who was trying to get change for some cash. He tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around aggitatedly, half expecting to see someone on a pillage for money. "Oh," she said upon realising it was actually someone she knew. "Hi, Saito."

"Hey, Yai. I just came to tell you that Lan and I are leaving shortly. If you see Maylu, will you tell her, please? I know we were supposed to regroup afterward, but I haven't got time."

"Alright. I'll see you at school, then. Bye!"

"Right! See you!" Hah. He only needed to find Lan now, which shouldn't be too difficult. He was playing Dance Dance Revolution, after all. He headed off in that direction, back through the business of the arcade. As soon as they got home, Lan was doing that stupid homework whether he liked it or not.

Saito was right, of course. Lan and Dex were ever so diligent in their quest to beat the net arcade's ultimate DDR player. They hadn't yet given up. Thus far, they'd come in pretty close several times, but never did quite well enough to beat the pants off that Tom fellow. Stopping for a break, they counted what remained of their change. Thankfully (and with a mighty lot of luck), they had managed to mooch a fair amount from Yai and her vast wealth, so they still had some left. Lan sighed dejectedly. "That's it. We're coming back on the weekend. That Tom guy will never know what hit him!"

"At least we're good," Dex boasted. "We could prob'ly take him on in a DDR dance-off."

"Probably." Lan grinned. "We're better than everyone else we know, anyway."

Dex laughed. He had an awkward laugh. It was hearty, but very very awkward. Nonetheless, Lan didn't seem to notice or mind it. The larger boy snorted. "Chisao begged me to teach him one day, so I did. Man, was he ever bad!" Behind him, a couple of girls were still waiting for their turns on the Dance Dance Revolution machines, since the others were taken. Needless to say, both were becoming rather irrate. Dex ignored them.

"Hahaha! I know what you mean." Lan pocketed the last of his change. "Saito was decent, I guess, but nobody beats the masters!" He winked and gestured to Dex and then back to himself.

"Huh. Must be cool to have a brother who's actually old enough to do stuff with ya." By now, the girls who were waiting were starting to get mad. They were grumbling about the 'DDR hogs'. And of course, Dex and Lan continued to ignore them.

"Meh, I guess it's okay," Lan answered. "Just 'cause we're the same age, doesn't mean we do the same stuff. Chisao's too little to do all the stuff you wanna do, but Saito's too _boring_ to do the stuff I like doing." He watched the screen for afew moments as it displayed the game's title again. And of course, with the perfect of all timing, Saito showed up behind him just then. Lan didn't hear him walk up, however, due to the noise all around him. He continued to talk. "I mean, if Saito wasn't such a drag, I wouldn't mind letting him hang out with us more, y'know? But he'd rather read and do homework and study and stuff. He's kinda... lame. I wish he were more like you. That would rock."

Saito's heart sunk.

Dex turned around, and his eyes got wide. "Uhm, Lan? We got company."

Lan spun around only to be greeted by his brother's wounded expression. Did Saito hear all of that? Uh-oh... Lan flinched mentally. "Err.. hey, Saito."

"Hey..."

"Uh, time to go, I guess?"

"Yeah... L-let's just go, okay?"

Lan shot Dex an 'oh-darn-I'm-toasted' expression before hopping down from the DDR platform. "See you Dex," he said.

"See you," came the reply. His friend's expression practically read, 'Nice going'. Embarassed that he'd said such a foolish thing, Lan immediatly was overcome with something he could only place as being vague rue. He and his brother left in complete silence, a growing tension looming over them. At a complete and total loss of what to say now that he'd already said such horrendously stupid things in front of his brother, Lan could only follow him in awkward silence. It was brighter outside than in the net arcade, and it took a moment for his eyes to readjust.

It took several blocks of walking before any sort of conversation began. "I'm sorry," Saito said quietly after a moment.

His brother recoiled. "What?" he asked almost aggitatedly. "Why are you apologizing? I'm the one who said the stupid thing."

Saito didn't directly respond to Lan's retort. "I'm sorry that you don't like me..."


	3. What I Think

Lan stopped altogether. "Sorry that I _what_?" He blinked stupidly. "Argh! It didn't mean anything, okay? Just forget I said it!" He picked up the pace again somewhat suddenly, moving right past Saito. He gave him a pat on the shoulder as he went by. Saito looked after him, still somewhat disheartened. Could he really listen to him..?

"Lan, wait." He too picked up the pace until they were walking side by side. "I'm sorry you think I'm a drag."

His twin sighed as though he were annoyed. "Seriously. Just forget I said it, okay? Nevermind."

Saito didn't reply. Lan was strange. He had his own way of doing things, and his own way of expressing himself. Perhaps Lan was merely frustrated with their differences. It was kind of understandable. They seemed to get on each others' nerves alot. Maybe... Lan just felt more at ease about expressing this to other people than he did. As much as Lan drove him crazy sometimes, Saito would never wish he weren't his brother. Hmmm. Having thought about this, he felt somewhat consoled. Yes. Lan was just being... Lan. It would be best to heed his words and just forget about it.

Thanks to Saito, they did make it home on time. Suffice to say, Mrs. Hikari was quite pleased. Lan, on the other hand, was not. He hadn't beaten the ultimate score of that Tom fellow, and now it was going to cost him who-knows-how-many more quarters to complete the darn thing. Ergh. By the time the two got home, their mother had just completed the cooking of her 'famous' spaghetti. She poked her head out of the kitchen.

"Oh! Hello boys! Just in time!" she said pleasantly.

Saito smiled. "I know." He stepped out of his sneakers and followed her into the kitchen. "Heh! Making dad's favorite without him?" he queried teasingly. "He wouldn't be very happy if he knew."

"Of course." His mother smiled thoughtfully as she took out the cutlery. "But... it reminds me of when he's home, so I like to make it now and then..."

Her son nodded knowingly. "Yeah... It would be nice if he could be around more often. Wouldn't it be great if some sort of reason came up so that he could come home for awhile?" His brown eyes darted back to the doorway as his twin entered. He gave Lan something of a smile. "Let's go get washed up and help mom set the table, alright?"

"Okay. We havin' spaghetti without dad?"

"Seems so!" Saito walked past Lan, grabbing the end of his long white shirt sleeve and giving a light tug. "Come on." He immediatly headed for the washroom sink. Saito was time efficient washing his hands. Lan, on the other hand, ended up using about three quarters of the soap because it was the pump type that came out foamy. He enjoyed it a little too much. After wasting several minutes trying to rinse all the soap off of his hands, he finally joined his brother in the kitchen. And, of course, Saito had just set the table. He tilted his head slightly and smiled at his twin.

"Had fun with the soap again?"

"Shut up," Lan mumbled, his face warming slightly in embarassment.

"Eh, don't worry about it, Lan." Saito moved his chair back and sat down, straight-backed and proper, just like always.

Lan did the same, but in a different fashion. He just sort of thunked himself down onto it. Just as he did so, a familiar tone sounded from close by. The phone! For some reason, Lan had developed an affinity for answering the phone. Perhaps it was because, to him, there was nothing greater than answering it only to discover it was his father calling. And so, he got up and made a dash for it. "I'll get it!" he called as he dissapeared around the corner. It turned out that it wasn't Dr. Hikari phoning after all. Oh well. At the very least, the call was still for him.

"Heya Lan," said Maylu on-screen. She smiled pleasantly.

"Oh, heya Maylu."

"Yai told me to call you," she explained.

Lan raised his eyebrows. Huh, a message being passed on from Yai? Must be important... or just gossip. Nonetheless, it caught his interest right away. "Really? How come?"

"Well..." She drew out the word a little. "She had Glide go and find out what was going to be done in school tomorrow since she might not be there again, and it turns out we're going to have a quiz."

"Quiz?" Lan repeated, his heart sinking like a chunk of lead. "What kind of quiz?"

"A math quiz," the girl responded calmly. How could she be so calm about this? This was a quiz she was talking about! A horrible sneaky way for their teacher to find out who was slacking off! Now, this wouldn't be a problem if he weren't slacking off in class, but unfortunately, this was the case, and so this information was almost the equivelent of hitting him in the side of a head with a baseball bat. Alright, so perhaps he exaggerated just a little. But he didn't know how to DO those fractions!

"Fractions..?" he predicted grimly.

"Yeah! Now you can study, though, so I'm sure you'll be okay. Ask Saito to help you!" She smiled again. "But... I gotta go. I have to run an errand for my mom. Anyway, take care! Bye!" And she blinked off screen. Ergh. Quiz. Ergh. Fractions. Double ergh. Letting this stew slowly in his brain, Lan wandered back to the kitchen. Saito watched him with great interest, obviously keen on learning about what was causing Lan to look like he'd just been hit in the head with something.

"So?" he queried.

"Maylu," summarised Lan in a word. "We have a fractions quiz in the morning..."

"Oh, okay."

Lan sat down and let his forehead hit the tabletop. "Not 'okay'. I dunno how to do fractions, and Ms. Mari's gonna know how 'great' my skill level is... Rghh." He sat up properly and let out a long and annoyed sigh. Mrs. Hikari had been waiting for him to return and took this opportunity to stick a plate of spaghetti in front of him. He picked up his fork loosely and twirled about half of the pasta on his plate into a big ball on his fork, which he thereafter shoved into his mouth. Since they were quite used to this, Mrs. Hikari and Saito didn't pay much mind to it.

"Sweetheart, you should eat more slowly," his mother suggested. "You don't want to be doing that when your father is home."

"Why not? He does it sometimes, too," he replied with his mouth full.

"And you need to do your homework and study for that quiz," Saito added.

"I know," Lan answered, easily twirling the last of his spaghetti around his fork. "But first I'm gonna beat the stupid last special stage on Sonic Heroes. Stupid Chaos Emeralds." He finished the rest of his food in probably less than 25 seconds, downed his drink in less than 5, stuck his dinnerwear in the sink and headed for the Gamecube. His mother sighed exhaustively.

"That boy is a bottomless pit, and he only thinks of video games and soccer." She half smiled.

Shortly afterwards, Saito joined Lan on the couch as he screamed a rant at that elusive seventh Chaos Emerald. He snarled frustratedly at the screen and restarted the level with Team Dark to try and regain access to the Special Stage. The two sat in moderate silence, except for the ocassional grumble from Lan when Shadow "wouldn't jump." After several tries at the same portion of the level, he managed to get through it successfully and re-entered the Special Stage. He mashed the B button like a maniac, and still didn't catch the stupid Emerald. More grumbling ensued. Saito shook his head.

"If you calm down, it will probably help," he suggested.

"Eh, I kinda give up." Lan quit the game and turned off the Gamecube. "You can try later if you want to." He sighed in almost instantaneous boredom and stared at the ceiling. "So much time. Such a lack of things to do..."

His brother smirked slightly. "We could start on that homework of yours, you know. Then you'd be alright to do that quiz tomorrow. It'll be easy."

"Rule 1: Quizzes are never easy or good. Rule 2: Studying isn't fun, either." He gave Saito a sideways glance. "Besides, fractions don't make sense."

"Of course they do. I'll show you how to do them properly." Saito got off the couch and picked up Lan's backpack, plunking it down next to the coffee table. He fished out the textbook and notebook and flipped through the pages until he reached the right places. "Look," he instructed. "You're doing it wrong. See, you don't just multiply all the numbers like that. You have to make it a mixed number first."

"Boring." Lan pretended to fall asleep. Saito rolled his eyes.

"We''ll do it later," proposed Lan, sitting up again. "Let's go outside and kick the ball around or something."

"Alright, Captain Procrastination..." Might as well give in. Besides, kicking around a soccer ball would give them some fresh air and something to do. They likely couldn't be out too long anyway, since it was still within the first half of the year, and darkness fell somewhat early, unlike in summer. Lan went to their room to pick up the soccer ball and returned moments later with it in hand. It was somewhat grass stained from the last time he'd decided to kick it around by himself to practise his 'power shots', as he called them. Oh well. Now that they had all that was required, the two put their sneakers back on and headed out into the yard.

"Gonna play outside," Lan called to their mother as he shut the door behind himself.

The air at this time was pleasantly cool. Lan took a large inhale and dropped the ball down in front of himself before kicking it along until he was about fifteen feet away from Saito. They played their little passing game in relative silence, softly kicking it back and forth. It wasn't exactly the most thrilling of passtimes, but it would do. This was something they could do amicably; without bickering or trying to kill each other. And thus, Saito found it enjoyable, even just for that. A chilly breeze blew itself amongst the trees and down the block. A car passed. Some people walking by on the other side of the street were talking to each other. He watched Lan halt the ball with the side of his sneaker before passing it back again.

"Lan?"

"Yeah?"

Saito smiled intently as his brother's brown eyes locked on his. "I..."

There were a million different ways in which he could express the brotherly affection he felt towards Lan, but none seemed to be workable. No matter how stupid he was, or how much he procrastinated... he had a good heart. He was fun. He was always optomistic when he needed to be. He was strong. Saito admired that somewhat discreetly. Lost for conversation, Saito just shook his head. "...Uhm... nevermind. It's nothing. Sorry." The soccer ball ricocheted off his sneaker with a somewhat elastic thud, rolling back aross the grass to Lan.

This continued on for a good while. The game itself never really picked up the pace, nor did it become more exciting, but the air slowly got chillier and the light outside slowly began to fade. Lan shivered visably despite his long-sleeved shirt. The daytime sounds were being eliminated and replaced with ones more befitting of evening or early night. Calm sounds. Less lively ones. The ball rolled up to the side of Lan's orange sneaker and stopped for the last time that evening. He bent down and picked it up, wet blades of grass sticking to him. He brushed them off with his free hand. "I'm kinda cold. Wanna head in?"

Saito nodded once. "Sure."

The warmth of the house was a welcome change. Mrs. Hikari was seated in the livingroom with a folded newspaper on her lap, probably doing the crossword. A soft smile lightened her features as she watched her two boys walk past, headed for their room. It was peculiar. Lan had always reminded her more of herself when she was younger, while Saito's general demeanor glowed entirely of Yuichiro with only very vague traces of herself. She watched the two disappear down the hallway and out of her sight. What would she do without the two of them..?

"Well, that consumed some time," Lan said, flopping backwards onto his bed. He gave his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle poster an upsidedown stare. "I have this feeling I'm supposed to go do something right now..."

If he didn't know him so well, Saito would have thought that Lan was being sarcastic. But, no. He was entirely serious, scary as it was. He had already forgotten his homework exsisted. He sunk himself into the computer chair just as Lan got up and began pacing thoughtfully in an attempt to remember.

"Lessee here..."

Saito smiled knowingly. "I can give you a hint, I think. It's something you do almost every night..."

"Oh!" His brother's brown eyes lit up. "Right! Thanks! I almost forgot!" He dashed out of the room. Saito expected to see him return with his homework, but this wasn't the case. Of course.

"Uhm, Lan? What are you doing?" he dared to ask from where he was.

"Supposed to take a shower tonight, remember?"

The other boy mushed his face into his palm._ Ugh... _

For some reason, Lan seemed to like to take as long as he possibly could without using up all the hot water in the house. He often took so long that sometimes Saito wondered if he somehow managed to kill himself in there. After a shockingly long time, however, he emerged from the bathroom, steamy air pouring out of the doorway after him. He rubbed vigorously at his soggy hair with a towel, clad in his pale blue pyjamas. He grinned in his trademark way at his brother as he re-entered their room. "That was nice," he decided somewhat mellowly. Giving his brown hair a last rub-down with the towl, he tossed it over the back of the computer chair and flopped onto his bed. "I'll put that away in the morning," he told Saito before he could say anything about it. 7:57PM. Close enough to bed time... might as well turn in. He crawled under the covers and pulled the comforter over his head.

Saito, already dressed in his pyjamas minutes before, was sitting on his bed silently finishing a chapter in his book. Deciding Lan had the right idea, he re-inserted the bookmark, turned out the light, and retired as well. In another few minutes, their mother appeared in the doorway, her form merely just a dark shape outlined by the light of the other parts of the house. "I'm glad you two are both in bed on time tonight," she said. "Maybe you'll have better luck getting up for school if you committ to going to bed on time every night, Lan."

"Yeah, I know," came the muffled response. "G'night, mom."

"Good night, mom," Saito repeated, somewhat more smoothly than his brother.

"Good night, boys," Mrs. Hikari replied gently. "Sleep well." And with that, her silhoutted form disappeared from the doorway.

Several minutes of silence followed. The warm darkness hung over them. On the wall, the digital clock's red dial read 8:11PM. Saito stared at it thoughtfully, unable to distinguish much else in the lightless room. He exhaled softly, wondering if Lan had already fallen asleep. He couldn't tell. His eyes slowly began to adjust to the dark, but by that point, Saito decided it would be better to just go to sleep. Drowsiness settled gently upon him. Just before he fell asleep, however, there came an interuption.

"Uhm... Saito?" came Lan's hushed tone.

The other boy's eyes blinked open halfway, although he couldn't see his brother in the dark. "Mmh... yes..?" he responded quietly in a thanks-for-waking-me-up voice. He could almost imagine Lan shift uncomfortably, and he heard the blankets move. This had better not be some ploy to stay up later.

"I... uh... kinda forgot something."

_Now_ he remembers? Saito closed his eyes again and turned over to face the wall. "I wondered when you would..."

Lan sighed. "I know, I know. I forgot again. That quiz is tommorrow and if I bomb it, Ms. Mari's going to know that I think fractions suck." He was quiet a moment. "BUT," he said, all-importantly, "I have a plan to fix it."

Saito, by this point, was almost too asleep to care, which was something of the rarity for him.

"You can go to school for me!"

Saito's eyes flew open. Did Lan just propose that outlandish and ridiculous plan? Now? Was he crazy? He didn't say anything. Maybe Lan would forget he actually just said that. Yeah. That could work. He must have been kidding anyway, and would take back his unfunny joke once he realised how terribly lacking in humour it was. But he didn't. Instead, he elaborated.

"See," he began, his voice somewhat excited, although quiet so he wouldn't get caught, "this is how it works. Tomorrow morning, we get up a little early and switch PJs, and beds. Yep. Then, that means I get to be you. I pretend 'you're' sick, and so 'you' don't have to go to school. You go to school as 'me', do my math quiz and pretend to be me, and then come home. Then we can switch back. Theeeen, the next day, 'you'll' be better, so you can go to school as yourself, and do your own quiz! Hehe. Great plan or what?"

"So, I have to do the same quiz twice..?" Now _Saito_ felt like he the one who'd been hit in the head with a baseball bat. Was Lan a nutcase?

"Well... sorta. But you don't have to do mine as good. Make some mistakes on purpose or something."

Saito sighed, now fully alert. "Wouldn't it just be easier for you to get up early and study?" he asked.

Lan considered this. "Nah. This is more interesting. What's the point of being identical twins if we never have fun with it? This is going to be awesome! G'night!"

"Good night..." Saito sighed again and closed his eyes. _Perfect..._


	4. Everything I'm Not

For an undetirminable reason, Saito didn't sleep all too well. To make matters worse, he was roused by Lan earlier than he would have ordinarily gotten up. The digital clock read 6:28AM when his brother prodded him awake. Already the scenario felt backwards, and they hadn't yet tried to con anyone. He sat up groggily. Lan was already fully alert. Excitement and anticipation toward his 'great plan' had probably motivated him to get up. Lan looked around as though he expected to see someone spying on them.

"Okay," he said. "Switch with me and you can go back to sleep. That's what I would do."

Saito didn't have much faith in this plan, but he went along with it anyway. Although... the whole idea of having to switch pyjamas kind of bothered him. Regardless, he ended up in Lan's and promptly switched places with him. Lan immediately swept back his brown hair with one hand. His brother watched him somewhat curiously.

"What are you doing?" This was always a scary thing to ask when you were talking to Lan.

"We don't part our hair the same way. Mom will notice. Mess up yours a whole bunch."

"Alright..." He was beginning to wonder why he was going through with this. The whole plot itself seemed so questionably ridiculous, like it would never work in a thousand years. I mean, they weren't _that_ identical, were they? Despite what was going on, Saito managed to get himself back to sleep, despite his relocating. He knew that if his mother didn't hear him get up at seven, she'd come to see what was going on. That would be Lan's que. _Oh, please don't mess it up..._

Sure enough, Saito didn't allow himself to get up at 7AM, and their mother appeared in the doorway shortly thereafter. Saito faced the wall, pretending to be asleep. Hopefully if they were going to get caught, it would be soon, and then they wouldn't get into as much trouble for it. He waited silently.

"You aren't up yet?" Mrs. Hikari queired, her voice slightly reflecting what was probably concern.

"I would be... but... I'm not feeling all too well," Lan lied, surprisingly well. As Saito had never been much of a liar, and Mrs. Hikari honestly believed Lan was him at this point, she didn't question this. Right now, she obviously wasn't looking for the single distinguishing quality in his appearance. After afew little questions here and there pertaining to 'Saito's' ailment, she consented to let him say home. "Lan," she said firmly, "you need to get up and get dressed or you're going to be late! Grab yourself a snack on the way out the door, please." With that, she headed out. The real Saito sat up and stared after her. Had she actually fallen for that? Was Lan's plan somehow working?

Lan gave him a confident grin. "Perfect." He looked around. "Now you just gotta get dressed as me." He got up and picked up his clothes, tossing them at his brother. "There. Put that on."

Saito flinched. "...but you wore that yesterday."

"Who cares?" Lan protested. "Wearing it again is what I'd do, so it's what you have to do as 'me'. And when you go downstairs, grab a poptart. That's what I'd do."

Still uncertain about how well this all was going to work out, Saito nodded reluctantly. He got dressed in Lan's standardized attire, still consumed by the thought that this plan was going to falter and crumble, leaving them both in a serious amount of trouble. Lan could probably deal with that, but Saito was hardly in trouble for anything, and so the thought of it was slightly nerve racking. He zipped up the orange vest and sighed distraughtly.

"Hey, don't worry," the other said, noting his grim expression. "Be more confident, and it'll work. And we need to fix your hair."

"My hair..?"

"Yeah." Lan approached him and vigorously messed it with his hands before frowning thoughtfully. "Still not right..." He looked around again, although expecting the solution to pop into view. And it did! His blue bandana sat next to the foot of his bed. Picking it up, he returned to his brother and tied it around his forehead. After spending several moments messing with both the bandana and his brother's hair, he grinned. It was a peculiar grin... successful, even. But there was another look to it that Saito couldn't quite figure out... "Go look in the mirror on your way downstairs, 'Lan," he said cooly before hopping back into bed. Summoning some nerve, Saito took a deep breath and left the room. He had to be confident and obnoxious to be like Lan. Loud, too. Yes. Slam the door on the way out of the house. That would work.

As he passed the mirror on the wall in the main hallway, he stopped, almost nervous to look at his own reflection. Exactly how messed up did he look? He bit his lip and checked. What he saw was enough to shock even him. It was like looking at his brother. Lan's face stared back instead of his own. He gently touched his own face to ensure this wasn't some kind of mistake. No. That was him? That was _his_ messy hair and bandana? That was _his_ unstraightened shirt and orange vest? His heart thudded excitedly against his chest. Perhaps his could work after all! With new faith in his brother's plan, he headed downstairs.

Saito did just as Lan told him. He grabbed a poptart and Lan's backpack before exiting the kitchen, and said something along the lines of 'See ya,' before slamming the door behind himself. Now, another interesting part about having to dress like Lan meant that he had to wear his sneakers. Lan's sneakers had something of a rollerblade attachment which he used primarily for racing to school on the numerous occassions that he was late. This was really the first time Saito had ever attempted to use them, and he could only hope it was as easy as it looked. He lost his balance several times once he got them on, but managed to shakily get used to them. And of course, due to this general hinderance, he was late for school. However, that worked out well, since Lan himself was usually late anyway.

Panting slightly, he arrived at school fifteen minutes late. Unknowing of who he really was, Ms. Mari turned in mid-sentence and gave him a frown. "Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hikari," she said stiffly. "Please take your seat." Saito's face warmed as he realized the entire population of the class was staring at him. He now somewhat pitied his brother's lack of punctuality. This was embarassing. Tory was giving him a puzzled look, probably because 'Saito' wasn't here, and wouldn't exactly 'be' at school until tomorrow. Hah, if only he knew that was really Saito he was looking at. He silently made his way towards the back of his class, where Dex was. The chair screeched across the floor as he pulled it out, and he sank into it less than gracefully. Good, good. Very Lan-like.

Dex inconspicuously prodded him with a torn fraction of a piece of note paper. Fake Lan took it somewhat nervously, unfolding it carefully as not to attract attention. In dark and somewhat illegible printing, it read the following:

_glad your here_

_lets do part 1 of THE PLAN soon_

Saito stared in bafflement. Plan? What plan? He would have to pretend to know. He rooted around for Lan's unsharpened pencil, and after successfully managing to find it, attempted a reply.

_Okay. After recess..?_

He attempted to toss it back, but failed horribly, and the folded piece of paper flew over the top of the other boy's desk, landing on the opposite side of the floor. He kicked himself mentally. Dex didn't seem to notice or mind. He merely reached over quietly and picked it up, his eyes locked on Ms. Mari all the while. Man, he was pro at this.

Sure enough, Yai Ayano was correct. There indeed was a math quiz on the dreaded fractions. Ms. Mari declared its exsistence, and cheerfully began handing them out, much to the dismay of everyone who hadn't been expecting it, which of course, exluded Yai's friends. As soon as everyone had a paper, the teacher instructed they had twenty-five minutes to complete it. This, she said with an ironically joking tone, would tell her who was paying attention in class... and who wasn't. After reading over the questions, Dex looked like his brain had just been rocked with a nuclear explosion. He picked up his pencil with a great amount of uncertainty, and answered the first two problems before getting stuck. If Dex was this horrible at it, Lan had to be, too. If Saito had to fake Lan's horrendous ability with math tests, why was he the one doing it? Couldn't Lan fail on his own? Thinking of this, Saito honestly felt bad. He did love his brother, and he didn't want him to be an utter failure. He'd get some questions wrong on purpose, but he'd get afew more than usual correct, so the mark would be okay. It really wasn't a difficult quiz. By this point, he could easily tell why Ms. Mari could weed out the slackers with it. At least Lan was safe for now.

After this was over, Ms. Mari decided to go into a rather long and descriptive diagram-filled explanation of something pertaining to Social Studies, and recess finally came. Being Lan hadn't proven too difficult so far. Forcing himself not to pay attention was wearing down his attention span, however. He managed to zone out several times, mostly on purpose.

"Lan! Hey, Lan!"

He sighed thoughtfully and continued pondering pointlessly over why the endings of 'chlorine' and 'famine' weren't pronounced the same way.

"Lan, yo!"

Finally he snapped into attention. Lan..? Wait, that was him. Well, sort of. Saito looked up to see Dex looming over the front of his desk, grinning stupidly. Hah. He had to admit, Dex and Lan did seem to share some alike expressions. "Uh, hey," he said, kind of stupidly.

"'S'up, man? You been zoning out more than usual. Hehe."

Unfortunately, Saito was unable to determine what level Dex was joking at. He shrugged it off. "I kinda had a bad morning," he responded, standing up. "La... Err, Saito didn't come to school today 'cause he's not feeling too well, so I didn't really get up on time or anything."

"Yeah, I know whatcha mean." Another ridiculous smirk. "So... Ready to initiate _THE PLAN_?" The last two words had an awkwardly large amount of over-emphasis.

"The Plan..." Saito repeated, trying to remember his brother having said anything whatsoever about it. "Uhmmm..."

"Y'know," Dex said emphatically. "THEE Plan."

"Oh," Fake Lan responded stupidly, lacking any idea as to what this 'Plan' pertained to. "_The_ plan. Right..."

"Thatta boy!" The other gave him a hearty slap on the back with enough force to knock him over. Unused to this, Saito lost his balance slightly. Was Lan used to getting winded like this or something? Trying to be appropriately responsive, Fake Lan tried somewhat shoddily to replicate Lan's trademark grin. It must have been convincing, because Dex thereafter did the same. Whew. But what the heck was he going to do about this "plan"? Dex went into some kind of stealth mode. He looked around with shifty eyes, looking out for anything that could thwart the ever so great PLAN. Too many people around.

"Darn. Can't do it now. Too many people."

"Errr, darn." Time to step it up a notch before Dex suspected anything. "So, when are we gonna uhm... kick butt at DDR?" Ergh. Not obnoxious enough. _Try harder_, he thought. _Don't want to get caught..._

"Friday," Dex said resolutely. "We are going to make HISTORY outta that Tom guy!" Apparently, over-emphasis was 'the thing'. Lan didn't really do that, though, so he wasn't going to attempt it.

"Right on!" Fake Lan said, again replicating that stupid grin and clenching an emphatical fist. "We'll pulverize his DDR skills!"

"Sure we will! We rock!" This was going relatively well. If he could keep this up, and hopefully do better, he could last all day. Dex was probably just barely dense enough to fall for it, but if anyone else caught on, Saito would be burnt toast. He'd have to lay it on thick. But things got bad. Yai had actually attended school that day after all, and she re-entered the room with Maylu in tow. How didn't he notice them before? This would take alot of care. No more faltering.

"Heya, guys!" Maylu greeted, walking up to Dex and Fake Lan. "How do you think you did on the test?"

"I... err... okay, I hope," Dex mumbled, his face going slightly pink.

"Hmph." Yai put her hands on her hips. "Too easy, if you ask me. I think Ms. Mari is just being soft on those of us who can't bother to pay attention in class." She shot the two boys a glare. "I hope you two paid attention, for your own sakes!"

Maylu didn't add to Yai's somewhat rude remark. "So, what about you, Lan?"

Saito snapped into attention. Lan was him. Yes; right. He had to remember that. "Okay, I guess," he said, trying to sound indifferent. He put his hands behind his head, which was something of a habit of Lan's, used primarily when he was trying to act 'cool'. This scenario fit the bill pretty well. "What are-- err, whatcha doin' after school?"

"I'm going to go swimming with Yai," responded Maylu pleasantly. "Then I have piano lessons. Are you guys doing anything in particular today?"

Dex snorted. "Meh, I'm gonna beat some video games. Lan, did you ever get that seventh emerald on Sonic Heroes?"

"No," Saito said flatly, rolling his eyes at the thought of his brother's tantrum at the TV.

Tory wandered up. "Hey all!" he greeted. "What are we talking about?"

"Not much," Yai informed. "But I think we're running short on time."

Saito turned his head to look at the clock fixed on the back wall of the classroom. It was placed there so that students wouldn't spend all day staring at it, and neglect to pay attention, especially in the afternoon. They had a few minutes left. When he turned back, Maylu was giving him a funny look. Dex, Tory and Yai began discussing something else, but Maylu stayed out of the conversation, her eyes fixed on him. What was she doing..? After another moment of this, she excused herself and grabbed Fake Lan by the hem of his sleeve and dragged him aside.

Uh-oh...

Maylu frowned and tilted her head at him. "Saito..?" she asked in a hushed but slightly awestruck tone. Fake Lan recoiled slightly. It would be hard to worm out of this one.

"What the heck?" he shot in a bland attempt to shield himself. "What do you mean?"

The red-haired girl's analytical expression softened. She put a hand on her hip. "Nice try."

Saito's heart drummed nervously against his chest. Should he continue trying to fake it, or just see what she said next? Maylu only smirked. "You're Saito," she said with an air of finality, although she was still hushed as not to be overheard. "I know it."

No point in trying to hide it anymore. Saito bit his lip. "...how could you tell?"

She pointed to his hair. "Your hair in the back sticks up. I saw when you turned to look at the clock."

"Darn... Looks like we both forgot about that." He sighed in defeat.

Maylu smiled sympathetically and placed a hand on his arm. "Poor Saito," she said. "Lan put you up to this, didn't he?" She tilted her head again. "I guess you guys have a whole big scheme planned out and everything."

"Not exactly," he replied honestly. "But either way, it looks like I'm finished."

"No," she told him. "I won't tell anybody. You're doing okay. I'm just going to have to assume Lan had a perfectly good reason for all of this, and I'm not even going to ask what it is."

Saito felt relieved. "Thank you. Since you know, would you mind lending me a little help if it looks like I'm in trouble?"

"Not a problem. Just don't take it personally if I call you an idiot."

"I can see where he picked up that nickname," Saito mumbled. Just then, the bell rang from just outside the classroom, signaling that class was about to resume. Students re-entered and scattered to get to their places. Hopefully things would get a little easier now that someone knew what was going on...

Meanwhile, back at home, Fake Saito was having something of a field day. Pretending to be sick was great, and pretending to be Saito had some advantages. Since his brother always did everything efficiently, he was done with any homework or studying or any extra chores he could possibly have, so his mom wasn't nagging at Fake Saito to do them. What better way to spend the day than asleep? Lan was a very good slacker. He spent most of the morning sleeping in. At approximately eleven thirty in the morning, he finally untangled himself from his brother's blankets and trudged downstairs. Hmm... how to be like Saito. Well, firstly, he had to try to cut the slang. He yawned and stretched. Sleeping still seemed like a good option, but he had to act more assertive. Heading for the couch, he sunk onto it. His mother always left a folded blanket on the end of it. Tugging on it, Lan managed to unfold the white crocheted thing and pull it over himself. A change of scenery, anyway. As long as Mrs. Hikari didn't catch significant sight of the back of his hair, and as long as he didn't say anything stupid and un-Saito-like, he would be fine. This couldn't get any more perfect.

Unfortunately, at this time of day, there wasn't anything particularly interesting on TV. There was alot of Elmo's World, though. At complete lack of anything else to watch, he watched three consecutive episodes before giving up on that channel. His mother was busy tidying up the house which had proven otherwise unproblematic, except when she at last got to the vacuuming. Lan had to fight the persistant urge to get annoyed and turn up the TV's volume level all the way up. But no; Saito wouldn't do that. He would sit straight and calm and patient until the noise ceased. Ugh. So Lan fought to keep it up until Mrs. Hikari finished pleasantly vacuuming around the coffee table. With a click, the noise at last stopped. Lan's brain almost screamed, 'Thank You!".

She looked at him with loving brown eyes. "How are you feeling, sweetheart?" she asked kindly.

Hmm, what would Saito say..? "I'm starting to feel better," Fake Saito replied in artificial earnest.

"That's good. Perhaps you'll be alright to go to school tomorrow."

"I think so." Ahaha, this was too easy. Too, _too_ easy. He gave a very Saito-like smile. This would continue to go well as long as Saito himself didn't flop horribly in a sad attempt to be as absolutely cool as the real Lan.

Fake Saito had a relatively unproductive day. He watched alot of TV and ended up falling asleep on the couch halfway through watching some movie that had randomly been aired on some channel he couldn't remember the name of. This was great. A whole day of free lounging and relaxation, even if it involved the watching of Elmo's World. He had a long and undisturbed rest that could have gone on longer than it did if not for the real Saito's obvious ability to mimick his obnoxiousness. At quarter to three in the afternoon, Fake Lan bounded into the house, slamming the door behind himself.

"I'm home!" he practically shouted.

Fake Saito awoke with a start. With a grumble, he rubbed at his eyes and gave the clock a drowsy half-glance. His brother was home from school already? Oh well. At least that quiz was officially out of the way. He listened quietly as their mother scolded 'Lan' for being so rowdy, especially when his brother was sleeping. Sitting up, Fake Saito gave Fake Lan a smirk as the other headed into the room. The real Saito glared at him in aggitation. After approximately six hours of having to pretend to be dense and obnoxious, he was finally home and could resume being himself. No more making stupid remarks. No more talking to Dex during class. No more faking for his brother's benefit. He had better appreciate this.

"Feeling any better, 'Saito'?" Fake Lan asked, fighting to keep his voice from sounding as edged in annoyance as he was.

"A lot." Fake Saito stretched. "How was school?" Another smirk, this one almost ridiculing. Ergh. He could be a little more kind after what Saito had to put up with...

"It was okay, I guess." He grabbed for the real Lan's pyjamma sleeve and dragged him towards their bedroom. "But I need to ask you something, okay?"

"Uh, sure."

Arriving in their bedroom, Saito promptly slammed the door. "Why didn't you tell me about this 'Plan' thing?" he demanded. "Dex was going on about it all day, sharpening details and ranting excitedly, and I didn't know what the heck he was talking about! I'm sure glad we didn't find the ideal time to do it..!"

Lan burst into laughter. "Oh man! Sorry! We were planning to prank the teacher, but we were kinda stuck between choosing which one we wanted to do. It completely slipped my mind. Heh." He smirked again. "So, how was that quiz?"

"It was fine, as long as you did the homework," replied Saito flatly. "Mind you, you forgot to do it, and it was due today, so Ms. Mari gave me a ten minute lecture about how 'I' need to stop forgetting to do 'my' homework." He paused. "If you keep that up, she's probably going to phone Mom and talk to her about it."

"I know, I know."

His brother looked him up and down. "You're still in my pyjammas? You should get dressed."

"I've been asleep like... all day." Big surprise there. He searched around in the drawer before finding a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. After changing into them, he picked up his brother's blue fleece pullover and tugged it over his head.

Saito sighed. "..I meant in your own clothes."

Poking his head out through the top and straightening the pullover, Lan raised his eyebrows. "You wanted to switch back?"

"Yes..! I've been 'you' all day!" He sighed exhaustively. "School's done, and I finished your quiz, so can we please go back to normal now? Besides, I'm scared I'm going to shatter a window, slamming doors like that."

"They don't break when I do it, and I slam them alot harder than you do."

"That's besides the point." He crossed his arms over the orange vest he was sporting. "Please just switch back with me."

Lan pouted. It was an expression he often used when his mother wouldn't let him have what he wanted. "Fine," he agreed dimly. "But it's fun reaping the benefits!"

"You've 'reaped' enough benefits for one day! I got yelled at! Switch back,_ please_." Saito unzipped the orange vest and handed to it Lan, who thereafter rolled his eyes.

"Alright, alright." Lan pulled the sweater back up over his head and let it land on the edge of his bed. It seemed strange; Lan almost did look just like him with that blue sweater on, minus the untidiness of his hair. Saito sighed again and began changing back into what would be normal outerwear for him, returning Lan's customary attire. Thankfully, Saito resumed the role of being himself. Lastly, he tugged off the blue bandana from around his forehead and put it into his brother's hand.

"There," he said, with an air of finality. "Back to normal!"

"Puh. I still could have reaped more benefits..."

"Lan."

"Sorry. Yeesh."

The two headed back out into the livingroom. On the way past the mirror in the hallway, Saito stopped to straighten his hair out, and Lan put on his bandana. Their mother didn't look suspicious in the least. Perhaps she was a little too trusting... Mrs. Hikari looked at her boys lovingly. They were such good kids. They didn't get into too much trouble (well, Lan did sometimes), and their fighting never got too out of hand. Both probably understood what their mother had to go through since she was alone with them most of the time. And right now, the two of them were being amicable. She was glad they could get along sometimes. Ah... serenity at its finest, when the twins weren't arguing over something ridiculous and things were quiet.

Haruka left them to go and do whatever, and spent approximately ten minutes folding clothes in her bedroom before the only interruption that day occured. Lan resumed Sonic Heroes. That was never quiet. She sighed.

Saito sat watching his brother quietly, trying to adjust to being humself again, and now having to pretend he was mildly unwell, thanks to Lan's oh-so-intelligent plan. This was so much more calming than having to pretend to be a hyperactive doofus. Lan was, of course, shrieking curses of eternal damnation at that seventh Chaos Emerald, which he had failed to get. Again. Frustrated, he thrust the indigo controller into his brother's hands. "YOU try. I give up."

Smiling softly, Saito nodded. "Alright." A play through the last level produced a key to the Special Stage, by which he gained access to a chance to obtain that seventh emerald which had so aggrivated his brother. And he got it on the first try. Lan cheered in triumph as though he'd done it himself, and excitedly reclaimed the controller so he could go and try Metal Madness and finally finish the game. He didn't thank Saito for retrieving the Emerald, nor for having gone along with his hopelessly strange plan, nor for even having done a quiz in his stead.

...But Saito could live with that, although he wasn't sure why.


	5. Better Day

_**Author's Note: **Sorry it took awhile! Eh. Well, at least there's no real bickering in this one. Anyhow, thank you for reading. Reviews are hugely appreciated:D_

* * *

The next day began with a much more promising outlook. Lan didn't complain about having to get up on time when his brother attempted to rouse him, and he was in a generally cooperative mood for once. Rarely did Lan begin a day the way he had today, and it sparked hope in Saito. Maybe they could actually go for an entire day without fighting about anything stupid, and without Lan throwing fruitless fits of frustration for the most childish reasons he could pick out. This day had promise. Yes. And a lot of it. This good mood could last. Saito was going to help it to. They did get along about half the time, but a whole day of them getting along harmoniously was hard to come by. Feeling reasonably encouraged, Saito thought carefully about what they ought to talk about on the way to school. Better leave tests and homework out of it if possible.

Lan was whistling the tune from the ending credits of a movie he'd seen recently, and walking like an idiot. He was kind of good at that. It was cheerful, anyway, the clear result of a good mood. Saito smiled at his brother's considerable cheeriness. Usually walks to school were filled with either silence or a list of complaints from Lan. Today, this walk was void of either.

"You're in a good mood this morning," Saito remarked.

"Totally," said Lan, who appeared to be consumed by the pleasant thought of something-or-other. "Wanna know why?"

"Alright."

Lan turned right around to face him. "There's a net battle tournament coming up!" he proclaimed enthusiastically. "It's awesome! All kinds of world-class net battlers will be there to show off their skills!" He was grinning broadly.

"Oh," Saito said, trying to mask his vague disappointment. He knew quite well that for reasons he never fully explained, Dr. Hikari didn't want them to have navis. He always came up with whatever cover he could for it…. That he was busy, that there wasn't time for it… or his favorite: that they 'didn't need them at this point'. Saito himself had only asked once. It only took one try for him to figure out that there was obviously a hidden reason for their father's lack of enthusiasm when it came to the idea of the boys getting AI computer programs. Lan, on the other hand, tried frequently, convinced that eventually he'd give in and give Lan the super cool customized navi he always talked about someday owning. "Were you interested in going..?" he dared to ask his brother, hopeful that this wouldn't eventually lead to Lan's disappointment for the umpteenth time.

"More than _going_!" Lan told him confidently, continuing to walk through the brisk morning air. "I want to enter! I've got awhile still. If Dad could get me a navi customized soon, then I'd have time to practice. I mean, even if I can't win, I'd still have bragging rights for entering, wouldn't I?"

"I guess so…" Here we go again.

No. He wasn't going to think like that. He'd steer Lan clear from the road of disappointment. Somehow he had to forget about navis and net battling for now. When their father wanted them to have navis, he'd offer them. For now..? Well, they'd have to go without. Saito would have to be careful, though.

"Lan," he started hesitantly, "maybe if Dad wanted us to have navis, he'd… you know. Give them to us as gifts or something. If we stop badgering him about it, maybe he'll have more time to think."

Lan shrugged. "I guess. But I'm all for entering that competition."

"I know you are." He couldn't bear the thought of Lan disappointing himself again. It was frustrating to have to watch. Saito perked up slightly. There was still so much about this day that could go right. He just had to bear that in mind. "I don't think we're doing math this morning," he offered, shifting the subject. This would cheer him up.

"GOOD. Fractions suck."

He smiled a little at his brother's emphasis. "And I think we'll be done that section on fractions soon, anyway, you know. I flipped ahead in the textbook, and we're close to the end of the chapter."

Lan narrowed his eyes as though playfully suspicious. "You _read ahead_ in textbooks?" he asked disbelievingly. Shaking his head a little, he laughed. "You're so weird! No wonder you get good marks!" Grinning in amusement, he gave Saito a soft punch on the arm. "Nerdo." He walked on, putting his hands behind his head. "Nice day t'day, isn't it?" There was a nice smile on his face now, the kind Saito appreciated seeing.

"Yeah. The sky is clear. I think it'll be sunny today."

"Good! Then you and me and Dex can play soccer outside after school. It'll be fun. Besides, Dex really sucks at soccer, so we get to watch him look like an idiot. He likes it anyway, though. I think he thinks it's like showing off." Again, the grin. It was a confident grin, shining with the strong-willed and good-natured part of Lan that Saito so honestly admired. Saito smiled, too.

* * *

Lan Hikari reclined in his chair, leaning back against the desk behind him and staring distractedly at the ceiling. He honestly couldn't remember what Ms. Mari was talking about. The last thing he could remember her saying was something about photosynthesis and some kind of plant, and now she seemed to be yammering on about a river somewhere. Weird. He sighed and started counting the ceiling tiles. _Huh… one, two, three, four… six… nine… fourteen… twenty-two…_

"Lan Hikari!"

…_twenty-seven… or was that twenty-eight? Hmmm. Yeah, twenty-seven. Twenty-eight… thirty…_

"Ahem!"

…_Argh! Missed another row. Better go back and count them again._

Something sharp jabbed him in the back of the head, and he turned to see Yai glaring at him furiously from behind the desk he was leaning on. "She's talking to you," she grumbled informatively, tapping the eraser of her mechanical pencil on the desktop impatiently.

"What?" Lan turned to face the front, only to be greeted by a displeased looking Ms. Mari. "Oh."

She put her hands on her hips. "And what, may I ask, were you doing, Mr. Hikari? Daydreaming in class again? Do you care about your marks at all?"

Lan shrugged indifferently, and meant it.

"If this keeps up, your grades will just continue to slip. I might have to call your mother if you neglect to pay attention any more than you are now!"

From around him, Lan heard several classmates snigger. "I'm listening…" he lied.

The young teacher cast him one last frown. "Alright then, Lan. I'll give you another chance. I know you're competent. You're good at science when you want to be. Please just start paying attention." Her brown eyes moved over to Dex, seated next to him. "And that goes for you, too, Dex." With that, she moved back up to the front of the classroom. Lan rolled his eyes in silence.

* * *

At recess, rather than going off to make stupid jokes with Dex (who had apparently gone off to make a feeble attempt at impressing Maylu), Lan came and sat on the front of Saito's desk, facing the front. He let out a large yawn, apparently staring beyond the blackboard. "So," he said in a rather nonchalant manner, "what's up?"

"Err… not much, given that you're sitting on the math worksheet I was supposed to correct," Saito answered honestly.

Tory wandered up next to them. "Heya guys! Whatcha up to?"

"Nothin'," said Lan, as though indifference were going out of style. "Just thinking."

"What about?" Tory queried before Saito managed to.

"Eh, Ms. Mari keeps telling me I'm 'competent' and should start paying more attention in class. It's kinda starting to irk me. I wish she would stop saying it." He coolly picked up Saito's pencil and began twirling it distractedly between two fingers.

"But it's _true_, Lan," Tory insisted. "She's only trying to help you. I'm sure you could get better marks if you wanted to. You're pretty competent at everything if you try."

"…Except English," the boy protested bluntly. "What the heck does 'competent' mean, anyway?"

Saito sighed. "It means you're capable of doing all those things. You just aren't trying hard enough." He lightly tugged his pencil from his brother's hand and set it back down next to his three-quarters completed paper. "Besides, you never do your homework. If you just did that, it would help. You get marks just for doing it, you know."

"Heh, that's how Dex manages to pass," Tory said with a playful smirk.

Lan shrugged indifferently. Indifference was 'the thing' right now, or something. "Guess so. But I don't like reading and writing. I like _doing_ stuff. Y'know… science and sports. And if I get a navi, I'll take up net battling, too!"

Tory's grey eyes lit up. "Oh! Speaking of which, I heard about something the other day."

The level of enthusiasm managed to capture the attention of both twins and they both waited with intense curiosity for him to continue. Saito was silently praying it wouldn't have anything to do with that net battle competition. If it wasn't, he could still make Lan forget about it. The dark haired boy smiled at their interest. "Thought I might grab your attention like that," he said. "Anyhow, y'know the soccer team? Well, the guy who plays right defense is moving next week! I heard it from his friend. His dad got a better job out of town, so they'll be out pretty quick." His cool eyes stopped on Lan. "Isn't defense your best position, Lan?"

Lan perked up reasonably. "Yeah." He stopped and let his dark eyes fix themselves on the ceiling like before. "But… those guys are older than me. They probably wouldn't let me fill in for that guy. He was good."

"Yeah, but they're only in sixth grade—just a year older than us. Besides, they have a game coming up, and they need somebody on short notice, I'm sure. You're good! They're having try-outs for the position tomorrow afternoon. I know because my cousin's friend was gonna go." He gave an encouraging smile. "So what do you say? You gonna try?"

Saito smiled, too, in full agreement with Tory. "I think you should," he offered. "You've got nothing to lose, I'd say." He waited for a moment as Lan studied his face, as though trying to determine whether or not he felt like agreeing with his brother. At last, he mirrored Saito's smile.

"'Kay! I guess it's worth a shot."

Dex's large form appeared behind Tory's, towering at least a foot higher. "Yo, Tory!" He gave the boy a friendly punch. Lan must have picked that up from him… The broad face produced an overconfident grin. "Better have brought your battlechips!" He was clutching his PET in his left hand as though he were ready to go even at that very moment.

"I did, I did," sighed Tory. "And I'm not going to forget. I'll see you at the net arcade after school like I said." He fidgeted slightly and pulled his own terminal out of the pocket of his shorts. Navis weren't as advanced as one might have expected them to be. They did respond entirely to voice commands, and they were capable of intelligent response, but their level of comprehension as far as emotion went wasn't very good. Their voices, although usually filled with personality, lacked the flexibility of concern and determination. Netnavis never truly expressed anger in their voices, nor did they understand how to comfort people very well. Saito could recall overhearing a crying girl expressing all of her problems to her navi, who had thereafter feebly attempted to console her. Its voice had lacked the authenticity of concern, but it had tried. Saito discreetly wondered why his father had never managed to make navis capable of successfully interacting with human emotion.

Lan straightened his blue bandana on his forehead and narrowed his eyes accusingly at Dex. "I thought you were coming with me after school," he shot. "What's up?"

"He is," Tory put in before an argument could ensue. Despite their claims of being best friends, Dex and Lan's similar personalities clashed at times, and Tory was obviously doing his best to avoid that from happening now. "He's not coming with me until after you guys are done."

"Oh. That explains a lot."

"We've only got a minute left," Saito pointed out. "Maybe you guys had better get back to your desks." Then maybe Lan would get off of his. Fortunately, this was the case. The other brunette boy hopped off the desk and unenthusiastically made his way back to his own. He was now absorbed in thinking about that position as defense. Defense was, in his opinion, the best position to play. It involved just the right level of action, and it made you feel relatively important if you managed to fend off the other team from shooting. He was determined to give as much of his skill as possible to that try-out. He was good! He had to make it. This, above all things, was what he was good at, and he had no intention of goofing it up. Besides, the thought of being on a team of guys a year older than him made him feel pretty cool. He sunk into his desk, his mind swimming dreamily in the thought of winning a game on that team. Wow… this couldn't get more perfect, even if Ms. Mari caught him again and decided to lecture him about competence for the hundred thousandth time.

* * *

The school day ended very quickly in Saito's mind, but very slowly in Lan's. At long last, the afternoon bell rang and students thankfully rose out of their seats and began collecting their things, chatting to each other. In all of his general excitement, Lan forgot both his math and science textbooks on his desk, and Maylu ended up having to dash out of class after him to return them to him. His mind was wholly fixed on that try-out. He was going to perform to his maximum, wow them with his skills and make that team. Hey, they needed an extra player, didn't they? How could he do any less than make the team, especially on short notice like that? The two boys wandered through the hallway, past the small groups of kids from different classes talking to each other. Saito found himself having to jog just to keep up with his brother.

"Lan!" he said quickly, darting around a blonde-haired girl and pardoning himself as he cut through the conversation of two fourth-grade boys. "Lan, slow down!" About six feet ahead, the other boy stopped to enable him to catch up. "Why are you walking so fast, anyway?"

"I actually didn't notice I was doing it," the other replied honestly.

"I hope you haven't forgotten you were going to meet Dex," Saito put in. "I think he'd be kind of displeased if you did." They resumed their walk, with Lan consciously trying to go slower.

"Yeah… we're gonna go to the park. I gotta grab the ball on the way over, though. You wanna come?" Wow. He had actually followed through on his words from that morning, a definite sign that this good mood was persisting, even with signs of extreme daydreaming and the lack of the ability to pay attention. "Besides, it'll be good practice for me, I think."

* * *

Lan's soccer ball was still as grass-stained and smudged as ever, in part from being kicked so hard, and also from its many times having been used in a manner similar to that of its cousin the football. Neither Lan nor Dex owned a football, and so if they felt like playing a game remotely similar, they just used the soccer ball instead. Despite its frequent use and less than glorified appearance, it was still in moderately good shape, and once again was being carried out the door to take part in a game. The boy's spirits didn't appear to be capable of going any higher. In fact, Lan was in such a good mood that he actually bothered to close the front door properly and didn't slam it very hard.

The park wasn't far from their house. In fact, at most, it was a good six blocks. It was a quick walk, and upon arriving, the two boys were greeted by the large and obnoxious form of Dex. The boy folded his broad arms and gave what Saito assumed to be an intimidating grin. It was such a feeble attempt that if one wasn't concentrating hard enough on his eyes, one might be led to believe that Dex had just gotten something equivalent to a brainfreeze. In any case, he looked kind of stupid. "So," he said easily, "ready to get schooled?"

"Hah, you wish." Lan brushed past him with a smart smirk and lofted the soccer ball onto the grass. "You're the one getting schooled, loser."

Loser. What a lovely term of endearment.

"How are we supposed to play with three?" Saito wondered, observing the vastly large amount of open grassy field that they were evidently claiming for their little game.

"One-on-one-on-one." Lan tightened his ridiculous bandana and gave the ball a light kick. "Just… run around and kick it, basically. Keep it away from each other." He shrugged. "I dunno. It's something to do, isn't it?" Another kick sent the ball rolling out about ten feet in front of him. "So let's get to it!" In a streak of color, he rushed after it, furthering his process down the field.

"Cheapskate!" Dex mumbled angrily, going after him.

It seemed funny that he could run even a fifth as fast as Lan. His heavy limbs suggested otherwise. Assuming now was the right time to start, Saito darted after Dex. The sun was still out now, and it cast a hazy warmth over the field. Lan hooked right, and in a moment's time ended up with both Dex and Saito hot on his tail. Dex was not a threat. He never was. He rarely ever got the ball unless it was passed to him, which only happened if they were playing two-on-two with another pair. Just to be annoying, Lan thereafter faked left and continued forward. He could just assume Dex had scowled at this move. Saito, however, seemed to be reading him a little too well for his liking. In a moment's time, he had turned up next to his brother, and was now trying to make a move on the ball.

"New rule," Lan declared loudly enough for everyone to hear him. "You gotta keep the ball for a minimum of thirty seconds and then get it to the north goal. Go!"

"Raaargh! Cheap!" wailed Dex.

"Nya, you're only saying that because you're too slow to win," jeered the first. He gave the soccer ball a nice solid kick, and it rolled ahead in a blur of black and white. "Counting now! Better get running!" Lan looped around his two playmates and ran after it. It was looking, at this point, as though he had everything quite in control and would easily win. As if he didn't always…

Huffing tremendously already, Dex took off after him, obviously putting some hard effort into the run. The chances of him keeping up with athletic, soccer-playing Lan and his lighter, smaller frame weren't very good at all. "You…" Huff puff. "..aren't…" Pant wheeze. "…gonna… win…!" The words were hardly audible, as he was obviously just muttering to himself, but from just ahead of him, Saito could still make out what was said. He mentally smirked. Poor Dex, giving it all he had and still losing. Still, Saito chose this as the ideal moment to go in after his brother since Dex wasn't offering much in the way of competition. He pressed forward, built up some speed and appeared up behind his brother in a matter of seconds. Moving past him from the side, he delivered a swift kick to the ball and sent it rolling from Lan's possession. Lan immediately ran after it, unphased. This was his kind of game and he would indefinitely win, Saito or no Saito.

"Nice try," he offered over his shoulder. Saito gave him a nod in reply and both boys continued their hot pursuit of the soccer ball with Dex puffing along some ten feet behind them. Lan's orange sneaker came into contact with the ball once again, and he easily started back toward the goal. If he could keep it for the whole distance, that would have definitely been a good thirty seconds, and he'd win. Ahaha. The goal rose closer in view, its steel frame shining sturdily in the afternoon sunshine. Hah, one good kick and he'd win. Ten seconds…

Eight seconds….

Saito dashed up behind him again, obviously trying to at least knock the ball out of the way and thwart Lan's win. Well, maybe not thwart. More like postpone. He had a funny determined look on his face.

Six seconds…

He gave several vain attempts at kicking it. The goal was close now! If Lan could just avoid him…

Four seconds…

It happened too fast. Someone's sneaker hooked someone else's ankle, and the next thing they knew, both Saito and Lan had come into full body contact with the grass. Rubbing at his grass-stained cheek, Lan Hikari sat up, wondering how that had managed to happen. Saito dusted himself off and stood up. Where did the ball go? Wait… what? Both stared in shock as the realization set in. _Dex had the ball now? _The heavyset boy jogged around them once, ball in his possession, and then shot it into the goal with a single somewhat clumsy kick. Lan's mouth fell open. That was thirty seconds. And a goal. Dex just won.

"HAW! Who's the loser now, Lan?"

"Lucky break," mumbled Lan, standing up, too. "If my klutz brother hadn't've knocked me down…"

"Me?" spluttered Saito, although it was more in a laughing manner than an offended one. "You were the one who I tripped over!" He bit his lip to restrain himself from laughing at Lan's ridiculous expression. It looked like he was somewhere between disbelief and entertainment, and the grass stain on his cheek still remained. Lan's current expression dissolved. He then smirked, and patted Dex's broad shoulder.

"Good work, Dex," he said, surprisingly enough. "But next time, don't play cheap!"


	6. Inner Workings

_**Author's Note (06/01/06): **__If anyone is still reading this and hasn't been bored out of their skull yet, you'll be happy to know this chapter marks the beginning of the actual plot! There's even a plot point in this chapter! Yay :D;;_

_Thank you for reading, and reviews are appreciated a lot! My apologies for having made this go on and on without actual "mainstream" plot stuff. XD Please take care. Bye :)_

* * *

The following day marked the beginning of the weekend. Despite the lack of classes, Lan miraculously didn't sleep in. As soon as Saito's digital clock went off, Lan bolted out of bed and got dressed in a hurry. Before Saito could ask what the rush was, he was already on his way downstairs. Saito blinked in surprise. That was quite possibly the weirdest things he'd ever seen his brother do, and Lan was pretty strange as it was. In ten minutes' time, Saito had gotten dressed as well, and wandered downstairs to see what Lan was up to. Entering the kitchen, he found him in the process of screwing the top of the jam jar back on. He was holding a piece of toast in his mouth.

"Mor'ing," he said, muffled by his food.

"Morning," replied Saito as Lan shoved the jam back into the refrigerator and promptly closed the door. With both hands free, he began munching on his breakfast like a civilized human being. Saito brushed past him and retrieved a container of blueberry yogurt from the bottom shelf in the just-closed fridge. "What are you doing up so early?" he asked curiously, closing the fridge and going to get a spoon for himself.

"Schedule: Get up, get dressed, eat, watch something, practice," responded Lan, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve. "That try-out's today, y'know."

"Yes, I know. But it's at 1PM, and it's only 7:12AM." Saito gave his yogurt a counter-clockwise stir and watched as Lan went to see what was on TV. The boy was leaning over the back of the couch, aiming the remote control at the TV affixed to their living room wall. The screen blinked to life and a lady with over-done blonde hair who was halfway through a teary speech appeared onscreen.

"Ugh… wrong channel." He fished around for a TV guide and after flipping through a few pages, decided nothing interesting was on. "Nothing's on, and it's Saturday? What a crock! Geez." He straightened up and shot a glance at the clock. "Now what..?"

"Well, you were reading last month's TV guide, for one thing," Saito answered. Lan made a screeching noise and dove over the back of the couch to get the new one off the coffee table. There was a thud as he collided with the side of it. Saito flinched. There was a pause. "Are you alright?"

"Ow… yeah…" Lan sat up on the floor in front of the couch and seized the new TV guide. In a moment, he had apparently found something watchable, and cut off Ms. Dramatic Soap Opera Lady (in the middle of her gushy confession to Mr. Way Too Much Hairspray) as he changed the channel. The sound of cartoons now filled the vicinity. Finishing his yogurt, Saito tidied up the mini mess his brother had managed to leave in the kitchen and walked back to the stairs. Lan looked over at him.

"Where ya goin'?"

"To take a shower."

"'Kay."

Within a relatively short time, Saito had finished his shower and was in the process of heading back downstairs when he encountered his mother. Ms. Hikari was all aglow in her fuzzy teal bathrobe and slippers. She smiled at him. "Good morning, sweetheart."

"Good morning. I'm heading back downstairs to bother Lan."

"Alright." She watched as he descended the first several stairs before attempting to stop him. "Oh! I forgot to mention something," she added quickly. "I was going to tell you when you got home from school yesterday, but I completely forgot. I'm sorry."

Saito turned his head. "That's okay. What was it?"

Ms. Hikari smiled somewhat seriously. "I want you to come with me when I go to drop off Lan at that soccer thing, alright?"

"Why's that?"

"You've got an appointment with the cardiologist at 1:30PM, and it would be good if we were early. It's along the way, anyhow." She tried to smile again as though it were nothing, but for some reason, it was inexplicably difficult to have to bring up anything to do with Saito's heart condition. No one liked doing it. It was like the whole family had come to the unspoken agreement that it was not to be mentioned unless absolutely necessary. It made everyone awkward. Why? That was uncertain.

Saito nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, trying to make it sound like they'd been talking about something much more normal than an eleven year old having to go to the cardiologist. With that, he continued on his way downstairs. He found Lan watching a questionably strange cartoon and plunked down next to him.

"Mom's up," Saito told him. Almost immediately thereafter, Ms. Hikari passed them on her way to the kitchen.

"Good morning, boys," she said cheerily as she passed.

"Morning," Lan said vaguely in response, obviously absorbed by his strange show. Saito fidgeted and attempted to think of means by which he could sound normal when bringing up the dreaded next piece of conversation. He sat in silence for a moment.

"Uhm… I'm coming with you on the way to that try-out," he said.

"'Kay. Cool." His brother didn't seem to notice any awkwardness. "How come?"

"I've uhm… got an appointment with the cardiologist." He quickly averted his eyes and pretended to be interested in a nearby house plant. He felt Lan's eyes lock on him. Why did conversation like this have to exist in the first place?

"Oh," said the other simply. "Any uhm… reason?"

"No," responded Saito concisely. "I don't think so. It's just… routine. You know."

"Oh. Okay." Lan resumed watching TV as before. It took a full six minutes for the awkwardness to dissolve. Stupid, stupid conversation. The afore mentioned weird show finished in a short while, and not long after that their mother passed by again with her coffee, headed back to her room. Just as the commercials on TV finished, she appeared again, fully dressed. There was a lot of going back and forth. She got her purse, and then her keys from the hook by the door. She tidied up some little things. At last, she reappeared at the side of the couch, and gave her ever-familiar warm smile.

"Alright, boys," Mrs. Hikari started, "I just wanted you to know I'm going out to run some errands and I'll be back in awhile." Lan opened his mouth to begin to protest on account of his soccer try-outs, but she raised a hand to stop him. "I'll be home well before I need to bring you anywhere, so you won't be late. Don't worry." Again, a smile. "So, be good while I'm gone. Don't fight too much, and Lan, please don't break anything." She gave each boy a kiss on the forehead and soon afterwards, she left.

Lan sighed. "Doesn't she trust me? I mean, really. When was the last time I broke something while she was out?"

There was hardly even a pause. "Yesterday."

"Oh c'mon! How was I supposed to know that thing would fall off the table? I didn't mean to ram into it." He shifted lazily and propped his arm up against the back of the couch, giving the clock a longing glance. "Why can't it be 1PM so I can go to the try-out?" Apparently having become restless, he got up and circled around the coffee table once rather impatiently. "I'm… I'm gonna go practice." He dashed up to their room and returned with his ever so precious soccer ball. "I'll be outside."

"Alright." Saito glanced around at the slight disarray that was their living room. Those newspapers ought to be recycled, and there was clutter collecting on the coffee table again. His mother wouldn't like that. At lack of anything else to do, he started tidying up a little as his brother disappeared out the sliding glass doors and out to the lawn. Hmm… the side of the house was going to get pounded again today…

WHUMPH.

Saito flinched as though he could feel the ball hit the exterior. Oh well. Time to tidy up. Their mother would appreciate it. He fixed up the living room, then did the dining room a little and advanced upstairs. At least it was productive. The floor of their bedroom had vanished again, however. It was once again blanketed by a covering of stuff and articles of clothing… his brother's, no doubt. He tossed most of it into the laundry basket, and then picked up the miscellaneous items that had managed to spill forth from the closet. Again. He came downstairs just in time to hear the phone ring. As no one else was available, he had to dash to it, but managed to pick up in time.

Tory's face blinked into view onscreen. He smiled. "Heya, Saito."

"Hey Tory." He was somewhat relieved; he'd been half expecting Dex. "Whatcha up to?"

"Not much, really," answered the boy. "How about you?"

"Doing a few chores. There's not much to talk about, I'm afraid." Saito half smiled.

"Ah, I see. That's alright. Say, I was wondering if you wanted to come over and do something later?"

"I'd love to!"

"Great! How 'bout 1PM?"

Saito flinched. "It… would have to be a little later than that. See, uhm, I've got an appointment at 1PM." Thankfully, Tory didn't even question him. It saved him the awkwardness, although there seemed to be less of it when he talked to a friend as opposed to his family anyway.

"Oh! Sure. That's okay. Call me when you get back or something, alright?"

"Sure. That sounds good. I will thanks." A soft nod. At least now he'd have something to do for the afternoon. "Talk to you later!"

"Right! See you! Bye!"

Lan practiced for a good long while. He was as determined as he could be. Nothing was going to wreck this for him. Eventually, though, he did start to tire out from the practicing. No use in using up all his energy now. Perhaps a snack could be in order? Leaving the ball where it was, he headed back to the glass doors only to be greeted face-to-face by his brother.

"Oh..! Uh, hello." Saito managed to smile. "I was just coming to ask you if you wanted a snack. I've been hearing the ball ricochet off the house for ages. Heh, you don't have to kick that hard during your games, do you?"

"Probably not, but it's good to have strong kicks, I think. Better distance that way." He brushed past his brother. "Now about that snack…"

Saito laughed. "I knew it. You're such a bottomless pit!"

"You only think so because you like… never eat anything." Lan welcomed the sight of the refrigerator as he went back into the kitchen. "You can never have too much bread. That's what I think." Two slices of it ended up on the tabletop. "Time for some classic ingredients." Processed cheese and jam joined the bread on the table.

"That's disgusting! Firstly, processed cheese tastes like plastic, and secondly, do you eat jam on everything?" Saito looked amused. "You've got the world's worst sense of taste."

Lan didn't seem to hear him. "Oh! Hey! Awesome! We have ham!"

"Oh, yuck…" He watched as Lan cheerily began to assemble his less than appealing sandwich. "Remind me never to let you cook anything for other people."

"Suit yourself," said Lan, doing a less than tidy job of getting the jam onto the bread. "You're just jealous because I'm more creative when it comes to sandwich making." He stuck his tongue out at his brother, and then grinned cheekily.

"Hah, yeah right. You'd just better not leave another mess!"

"Yeah, yeah." Assembly complete. He cut his sandwich roughly in half and started to clean up. "So, Dex didn't call, huh? I was gonna ask him if he wanted to go do something outside tonight. It's awesome how it stays light out for so long now, much better than in the winter. Besides, I'll need a chance to talk about my cool try-out." There was a thunk as Lan's knife landed dully at the bottom of the kitchen sink. "What are you gonna do later?"

"Tory and I were going to arrange something," responded Saito. "I'm not sure what, but I guess I've got awhile to think about it. I said I'd call him back later."

"Righto." The last of Lan's supplies found their way into the fridge again, and the door closed. "10:06AM…" he said thoughtfully, taking a look at the digital clock on the microwave. "Still got awhile." He looked as though he were carefully contemplating something. Wiping his hands off on the front of his dark shorts, Lan looked tentatively back at his brother. A large pause. It now looked like he was trying to swallow his pride… very slowly. "I… uhm… d'you wanna… uh, you know…" He bit his lip. "…help me with fractions a little?" Then, as though trying to hide any honest interest, he quickly added, "Not because I want to or anything, though! Just so I don't look like such an idiot in class."

Saito smiled warmly at him in a manner eerily similar to that of their mother. "Sure."

At approximately twenty after twelve, Mrs. Hikari returned home. She'd apparently taken longer than she should've at the bank because someone ahead of her in line was having some issue with a bill they had supposedly "already paid". Nonetheless, she got home in time, and summoned the boys to inform them they'd be leaving very soon and needed to get ready to go. This matter didn't take very long, and in short order, the three of them had taken their places in the car, and were heading off. There was general silence.

Lan kept fidgeting, probably because he was restless and convinced they were going to be late. Finally, he spoke. "Can we drive faster?" he whimpered at his mother.

She didn't let her eyes stray from the road. "No, dear. We'll get there in time."

More fidgeting. Saito silently stared out the window. If only he could be that restless about the speed they were traveling at. He wished they could go slower. Then maybe they'd miss his stupid appointment, and it would be postponed until another one got arranged… After a few minutes, they reached the 'official' soccer field and pulled into the parking lot.

"Finally," grumbled Lan under his breath, scrambling out of the car as though he were horrendously late. "Thanks mom! See ya." He looked toward his brother and gave a slight nod. "Bye."

"Bye. Good luck." Saito smiled faintly.

"Thanks! Bye!" And off he ran towards the collecting group of boys in the center of the field. Mrs. Hikari pulled her car out of the lot and headed back onto the road. She still looked cheery. Saito found it exceedingly difficult to ever feel optimistic about having to see a cardiologist. What was so good about having to hear about a worsening heart condition that was capable of killing him? Nothing. And so he hated it.

The scenery went by. They reached the dreaded office of the dreaded cardiologist. Saito followed his mother obediently, although sullenly through the glass doors and up the stairs. The appointment was short. As always, he drifted through it hazily. There was something about the atmosphere that completely drained him of the ability to pay much attention, and it was present again that day. He only half heartedly heard everything that was said, and went vaguely through everything that had to be done. Tests. Woo. Eventually, they somehow got through it all, and left. Hurrah.

Heading back out to the car, Mrs. Hikari took her keys out of her purse and smiled encouragingly. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No." A sigh.

"She said they'll be able to call back in a few days with results. Last time, there had been some improvement, so maybe things will be better this time, too."

"I hope so." Back into the car. Saito's mind felt empty. Going there always made him worry, and whenever some little thing went wrong, he'd get dragged back. Despite her efforts to hide it, Saito knew his mother worried about his heart condition on a regular basis. It had probably been a good thing that he hadn't mentioned soccer with Lan and Dex the other day. He'd felt fine afterwards, but Mrs. Hikari would have just worried again. She always did. Now, if he could just look forward to seeing a friend, and forget about this…

Lan's try-out went well. He'd spent a good fifteen minutes demonstrating his skills against another of the team players, and he'd given it his all. The older boys looked thoroughly impressed with him. He was quick on his feet, and he managed the ball well. In fact, by the time he was finished, he was quite confident that he was within the top three choices. The other guys hadn't been as good as him, even if they were older. They had to consider him.

The sun was hot by then, and although quite pleased with himself, Lan wasn't too inclined to have to get into a car in all the heat. Finally, his mother's car pulled up again, and he grudgingly bade farewell to his fellow soccer players. His confidence couldn't strike a higher peak. Clicking his seatbelt into place, he flashed a bold smile at his brother. "I did good!" he informed him. "I think they were impressed." In return, Saito gave him a faint smile.

"I'm sure they were," he responded honestly. "You tried hard."

"Darn right, I did!" Lan cracked his knuckles. "Just gotta wait and see now, hehe. This was all on short notice, too, so I won't have to wait long." He hardly noticed the far-away look in Saito's eyes. Instead he stretched. "So," he started, to fill the silence, "you gonna call Tory when we get home?"

"Of course…"

"'Kay. Cool." There was a tense pause. "So, uhm, how'd 'it' go?"

Saito practically felt the air prickle. Why was it always this tense? Act normal. Attempt to obscure all self-directed concern. He stared aimlessly at his blue sneakers. "Fine. The usual, I guess." How was he supposed to feel about the stupid heart condition? It never bothered him normally. Never. Never, until he was forced to find out whether or not it had gotten worse, or better… That was when it concerned him.

"Oh."

Thankfully, Mrs. Hikari had obviously been listening, and she cut into the conversation soon enough to save them from moments of uncomfortable silence. "You know, your father should be calling within the next few days," she offered. "He said he'd try to call on Saturday morning, but it looks like that didn't work out… Anyway, I'm sure you've both got a few things to say to him, at the least." They turned onto their street, and in a moment's time, the car pulled up in front of their house. Immediately, the twins both got out and headed back to the house.

"I need the phone after you!" Lan declared to his brother. "I'm calling Dex."

"Okay."

Lan retrieved the key from his mother and unlocked the door. Inside, it was much cooler than outside where the sun was shining. He sighed blissfully at the coolness. "Perfect," he said to himself. "It's not hot in here..!" Saito passed by him and headed for the phone. Some time with his friend would enable him to forget about the less than desirable errand he'd just endured. It took little time to contact Tory, since his father picked up on the first ring, and thereafter called him over to take the line.

"Hey Tory!"

"Hi! You're back sooner than I thought you'd be. So, you still wanna come over or something?"

"I'd love to. Is it alright?"

"Yeah! I asked just after we got off the phone earlier. If you want, I can meet you halfway, just to make the walk more interesting." The boy smiled. "It's kind of a way to go by yourself, anyway."

"Okay. I'll see you soon, then." A smile in return. "Bye!"

"Yeah. See ya!" The call ended.

Saito turned to see his mother already getting ready to attack a cobwebbed corner with her dustbuster. "I'm going to Tory's for a bit," he told her. "I'll see you in awhile!"

"So, how'd Lan's soccer tryout thing go?" Tory asked, seated on the edge of his bed in his all-too-blue bedroom.

"Alright, I think. He tried hard." Saito let his eyes wander across the PC monitor. IceMan gave him a customary friendly digital smile. He smiled vaguely back. "At the very least, it stopped him from talking about netnavis for awhile. I was afraid he'd get fixated on it again…"

"Huh. Did your dad ever tell you why you guys didn't get a set?"

"Not really. He just says to wait until there's a better version out." He watched as IceMan maintained his stationary position. A real person couldn't stand that long without fidgeting, could they? Did navis feel two-dimensional? Saito sometimes wondered if they thought on their own. Could a navi daydream, or ponder other than when asked a question..? He didn't even realize that he was starting fixatedly at the PC monitor until Tory's hand gave him a solid shove to the shoulder. Saito snapped out of it. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to zone out like that…"

The dark haired boy smiled a little. "It's fine. But you've been acting a little funny all afternoon, like your mind's someplace else? Are you okay?"

Rats. Caught. Maybe it would be better to explain this to a friend, anyway. It would get it off his shoulders. Besides, who else was around to listen? He couldn't explain anxiety of this nature to his family. It was altogether too awkward. Saito sighed somewhat dejectedly. "I had to go to the cardiologist today."

"Oh." Tory winced sympathetically. "I can see why it would bug you. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"That's the problem. I should talk about it, and I don't want to trouble my family. It's just that they make it feel so grim, and they try to cover it up with their forced smiles and the awkward silence. It doesn't make it any better."

Tory's cool eyes settled on him silently for a good moment before he spoke. "Maybe it's all they know how to do. I mean, they don't know the outcome of all of it. It's just an appointment where they can only hope they don't hear something bad. I'm sure you'll be fine, but the uncertainty probably unnerves them."

"I suppose you're right… Thanks…" Saito smiled, feeling already as though some of the compressed worry had been released. His intrigue became fixed on IceMan again. "I'm curious, though. What's net battling like?"

"Net battling?" repeated his friend in surprise. "Our topic went from concern to net battling? You're weird!"

"Heh, I guess! But I've never tried it, and I admit I'm a little curious. Would you explain it to me?"

"Sure." Tory retrieved some battle chips from a folder and picked up his personal terminal to jack his navi out of the net. "I'm sure you'll get it in no time. There's nothing to it."

Afternoon charged into evening without fail, and from evening to night. Lan had a lengthy story to tell about his very awesome soccer tryout when Saito got home. He described the look on Dex's face when he said he was up in the running against sixth graders. (Dex harbored a secret loathing for a classmate's older brother who was in the sixth grade, he claimed, which had something to do with it.) Despite his enthusiasm, it was really very boring to have to listen to, and he ended up repeating a couple of parts. Thankfully though, he had to go take a shower, which shut him up temporarily, much to the relief of both Mrs. Hikari and Saito. Saito realized much to his pleasure that he and his brother had gone for yet another day without fighting over anything. They hadn't spent all too much time together that day, but most if it had been peaceful, anyway.

Lan had asked for help with his homework.

That had to be a good sign of some kind. The new knowledge of net battling in conjunction with their currently agreeable relationship lead to a generally new level of optimism in Saito's thought pattern. Gone were the thoughts of the Cardiologist of Doom. By the time the twins had settled down to go to sleep, Lan's cheerful story re-telling had finally ended, and a warm quiet settled over the darkened room. "This," thought Saito "is nice. I want everything to stay this way…"

Peaceful sleep.

No thought broke the surface of his quieted mind. The nothingness rippled surreally. A soft sigh escaped him. Dreams that could have formed from the good thoughts in his head didn't. Nothing did for a good while, as though his mind itself had closed its eyes and was fully asleep, too. After a time, however, something decided to emerge. Deep within his seemingly stand-still thoughts, a pair of eyes blinked open. An instant afterward, Saito's eyes in the real world flew open. He could see nothing through the warm darkness. He could hear his brother's deep, even breathing. His head, however, was consumed by airiness. Feeling strange, Saito sat up in the dark and pressed a palm to his forehead. The dizziness slowly receded… slowly, slowly. After sitting still for several minutes, trying to breathe calmly, the strange lightheadedness had gone away. By this point, he could think nothing of the strange dream with the eyes…

He just went back to sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note #2 (06/04/13):**_ Hello, my dears! It has been a whopping seven years since I updated this fanfiction (06/01/06 - 06/04/13!), and so it's probably pretty obvious by now that I won't finish it. I did, however, just re-read it, and I remember how it was meant to end, so here is a decent summary. It's not the same as a proper ending, but at least you won't be in suspense, right? Right._

_I didn't make this thing into a seperate chapter because that would've bumped the story up on the series' page and that would've been sort of like false advertising, haha._

_It's possible, though not too likely, that I might eventually write actual chapters out of this stuff. Don't hold your breath, honestly. :U_

_Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Lan fails at getting onto the older boys' soccer team because they're not okay with him being a year younger. He's distraught, frustrated with the fact that he's failed at something he believes to be his only true strong point. Saito attempts to console him; he loves his brother regardless of shortcomings.

Determined to feel adept at something else, Lan pleads his father for a net navi again, but is denied for the umpteenth time. "Net navis are still developing with the technology," Dr. Hikari explains. "I want you and Saito to have the very best. It's something we're working on now, and if all goes well, they'll be ready for release in a few months." Privately, Dr. Hikari also feels that Lan and Saito should have highly compatible navis. They're identical twins, and he wants their navis to be functionally very compatible while still being unique, and he has not come up with any ideas he likes enough.

Meanwhile, Saito begins to occassionally feel strange, often after physical exertion. Concerned his mother will overblow the situation, he waits to be sure that something really is wrong before bringing it up. They have had false alarms in the past, and he doesn't want the family to be upset for nothing.

His little episodes begin to get worse and more frequent, however, and by the time he finds the courage to inform his parents, he ends up actually having a fainting spell. Test results come back, too. Saito's heart is finally failing. As the problem becomes worse, Saito sometimes feels deeply afraid for his own physical well-being. Sometimes in the midst of serious heart palpitations or worse, he tries to imagine the digital world a little. What he knows of it-its uniformness, its symmetry-somehow makes him feel a little better, knowing it's something his father helped to shape, and that he can someday join him in that effort. Its pale blue symmetry is somehow calming. He wants to live and see the future technology will create.

Saito ends up being admitted to the hospital. His condition deteriorates quickly. They look for a replacement heart, but nothing comes up fast enough. Dr. Hikari now has sufficient reason to come home, ironically to Lan's dismay. Lan is shaken by his brother's sudden decline and tries to work up the nerve to tell him he loves him. It's difficult for him, however, and he can't seem to find the right time or the right way to say how he feels.

Saito dies.

As he dies, he feels his fear fade away. He knows his brother will live on, and that, in a sense, he will, too. "I love you, Lan," he says, but Lan has no time to respond. It is over.

The Hikaris are devastated. Dr. Hikari refuses to accept that this is the absolute end of his elder son. In his despair, he throws himself into his work and finds a way to complete the net navis. Before, they were emotionally shallow, but he suddenly understands how to fix this. Dr. Hikari finds a way to make them whole people with real feelings and sentience that seem to be so much more than high-level AI. He produces the height of netnavi technology, a nearly flawless program: Megaman . EXE

"Lan," he says solemnly, "this is Megaman. He is a reflection of you, and yet you are complete individuals. He will listen and understand you in a way no one else will. Please do your best to be friends."

Furious at the notion that his father seems to be attempting to replace Saito with what is essentially a glorified palm-pilot, Lan refuses to even run his own set-up for some time. He does not want a net navi as a consolation gift for his brother's passing. He wants his brother back. He wants to say he's sorry. He wants to know if Saito knew he loved him, too, in spite of their childish clashes and disagreements.

Finally, at the prompting of his friends, who only want Lan to be happy again, he gives in and starts up his personal terminal... and is shocked. The navi's face is his own, is Saito's, and yet isn't. Megaman has green eyes instead of brown, and aesthetically follows the rules of navi design, but Lan can see the similarities. As a final touch, Megaman's hair, though dark blue, unlike Lan's own, sticks up in the back.

"Hello, Lan," says Megaman, sounding at once like Saito and nothing like Saito. "I'm Megaman. It's great to finally meet you. I hope we can be friends."

Lan is in disbelief. This can't be real. This is just pre-programmed. A navi can't understand real feelings, right? That much feels clear to him.

"I thought Dad said he'd perfected netnavis," he murmurs. "You're not perfect. You can't be..."

There is a genuine look of sympathy on the navi's face. "...I'm sorry. Dad told me everything, though. I can't fill the void, Lan, but you can talk to me. We'll be partners, okay?"

Lan cries. He understands what his father meant now, and it hurts and makes him happy at the same time. "Okay..."

"There was one thing he didn't tell me," continues Megaman. It's amazing to see how he can be so much like and unlike Saito at the same time. "Did we-I mean, you and Saito-did you get along?"

And Lan smiles a real smile, the first one in a long time. "Yeah," he says. "We did."

**The End**


End file.
